Hiram Walker
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Hiram Walker (4 July 1816 – 12 January 1899) was an American grocer and distiller, and the eponym of the famous distillery in Windsor, Ontario, Canada directly across from Detroit, Michigan. Walker founded the distillery in 1858 in what was then Walkerville, Ontario. Walker was born July 4, 1816 in East Douglas, Massachusetts, and moved to Detroit in the mid-1830s. He purchased land across the river, just east of what was Windsor, Ontario, and established a distillery on the banks of the Detroit River. Walker began selling his whiskey as Hiram Walker's Club Whiskey. It became very popular and American distillers became angry, and forced the US Government to pass a law requiring that all foreign whiskeys state their country of origin on the label. This move backfired; Hiram Walker's Canadian Club Whiskey became more popular.
He established and maintained the company town that sprang up around his distillery. He had planning over ever facet of the town, from public works to police, fire and religious services. He once opened a church for his workers, and then quickly closed it when the preacher decided to bite the hand that fed him by preaching about the "evils of Alcohol".
Hiram Walker died in Detroit, Michigan, January 12, 1899. He is buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit.
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The Hiram Walker & Sons Distillery remained in the Walker Family until the 1920s. Canadian Club Whiskey is still produced to this day at the distillery he helped to found. The company is now, as a result of a series of mergers, owned by UK-based spirits giant Allied Domecq PLC, which, as of June 2005 is itself a merger target of French rival Pernod Ricard SA.
External link
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=40606)