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Uncle Sam's Wine Cellar

Uncle Sam's Wine Cellar image
Parent Issue
Day
19
Month
January
Year
1894
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

A ghostly silence pervades the place. It is like the silence of the tomb. The outside world seems already centuries away. The air is cool and soothing, and three flaring gas .iets cast an intricato sornbination of ahadows upon the massive masonry of the arcbes. saya a writer in the Boston Herald, indescribing the wine vatilts under the Boston custom house. Aíter hundreds of years, when Boston is only a hole in the ground like tho ancient cities in the Mediterranean, some archseologist will dig down through the accumulated dust of centuries and find those hewn arches standing as they stand now. And yet the whole substantial structure is like the foolish man's houee, fonnded upon thesand and mad of Boston harbor. Three thousand tall pine trees, stripped of their limbs, were driven down close together in the black ooze to form a foundation for the building. These piles would last but a few short years in the outer air, but sunk in the harbor mnd they are believed to be as indestructible as the earth itself. When it was built, the custom house was upon the water front, and even now the cellar is below high water mark, yet there is no drier cellar on Beacon hill. The buildersseemed to have been the builders of pyramids and catacombs reincarnate, and the work was done to stand after the builders themselves were long forgotten. Upon the heads of the piles, in the form of a Maltese cross, was laid a capping of granite in hydraulic cement. Around it were built the massive walls of solid granite 6 f eet thick, which were to be a protection against heat and cold, fii-e and water and all Ihü elements. Within these walls ree the puzzling scheme of Rtnrdv illars and arches which made the cellar a maze of low roofed chambevs, niches, crypts and passages. When the visitor enters the basement and storehouse, which is on the street level. he feels instinctively consciousof the huge pile of granite over his head. This floor, within the surrounding row of offices, is tised for the storago of champagne and bottled wines. The cases, which hold two dozen bottles, are piled in regular tiers as high as the ceiling, and under the main entrance they are packed in solidly. There are usualiy between 3,000 and 4,000 cases, or over 40,000 bottles, which if popped all at once would make the granite dome tremble and miglit drown the attendants in a íoaming ílood. When a eousigimicnt of rum, which means anything ti-om champagne to brandy, is landed from a foreign vessel, the government orders it to be sent to the custom house cellar. If no owner appears to claim it, it is kept for a year and then is sold at auction to pay the duties and warehonsing charges. If the owner appears, he can pay the duties and withdraw his liqnor for immediate constimption, or he can give bonds for the duties and keep his stock stored in the government vaults until he wishes to withdraw it. The government charges him storages according to the capacity of packages and allows him to take it away by degrees as he needs it, paying' duty only on the amount withdrawn. Very often an importation of wino and spirits may change hands several times while it lies in bond deep under the granite dome. In such cases it is sold in bond, and the owner, instead of the importer, pays the duties and makcs the final entry of the merchandise.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News