10/15/2026
Our wonderful neighbor, patron, and friend, Liz Ankewitz Bement, blessed us with this beautiful write-up of our history. She graciously shared it with us and gave us permission to share it with all of you as well.
This is another wonderful piece of Spirits’ history and the history of this amazing city we all share.
All credit belongs to Liz Ankewitz Bement.
October feels like the natural time to explore the history of a favorite neighborhood 'haunt'—and haunted it may well be, having spent decades operating as a funeral parlor and undertaker's business. While lots of neighbors know the local lore, few know the full story hidden in the archives. Here’s what I found:
Groceries, Ghosts, and Good Pours: The Story Behind Spirits Tavern
Long before it was known for spirits—either bottled or otherworldly—the southeast corner of Bank and Wolfe Streets was a vacant parcel, prime for development.
Although the earliest houses in lower Fell’s Point date back to the 1760s, Upper Fell’s Point remained mostly pastoral fields until rowhouse construction pushed northward in the 1840s. In September 1847, land records document the initial lease of this corner lot. The grantor, William Fell Johnson, was no modest property holder— he was an heir to the combined Fell and Bond family fortunes through his grandmother, Ann Bond Fell. Alongside his wife Ann, sister Ann Giles Tagart, and brother-in-law William Tagart, he leased the parcel to a local mariner, Captain Solomon Disney.
Following the city's long-standing ground rent tradition, it was signed as a renewable 99-year leasehold deed. The Fell heirs retained the ground rent, requiring Disney to pay an annual fee of $27.00. While the lease itself didn’t require construction, it clearly anticipated it: the document stipulated that Disney would cover all taxes assessed on the ground, the rent, and any "buildings erected thereon".
Disney wasted no time making the annual ground rent pay for itself. By 1849, the city directory lists him operating as a grocer at the corner of Bank and Wolfe. In just two years, he had erected the brick structure standing today, though it may have started as a smaller building expanded over time. Disney lived on-site with his family until his death in 1863.
After Disney’s death, his wife Elizabeth continued living upstairs in the building before selling it in 1878 to Johan Christoph Wehr (who went by Christopher Wehr). Wehr was a Prussian immigrant who had filed his naturalization petition in Baltimore in October 1875. By 1879, the census shows Wehr was running a milk depot out of the storefront. In those pre-refrigeration days, a milk depot served as a neighborhood hub where fresh shipments from rural dairy farms were kept on ice, ladled directly into customers' own pails, or loaded onto wagons for morning home delivery. On the census, the building was numbered 167 Bank Street; it wasn't until Baltimore standardized its street grid into the 100-per-block system in 1887 that the corner officially became 1901 Bank.
Wehr sold the corner in 1881 to Germanus France, launching the undertaker era that inspired the tavern’s modern name. But France was far more than a neighborhood mortician—he was deeply immersed in East Baltimore civic and political life. Operating out of 1901 Bank, France worked within the local Democratic organization, serving as a delegate to the mayoral convention and running as a First Ward candidate for City Council in the primary of 1887. By the early 1890s, he was representing the United Democratic Club of the First Ward, hosting ward strategy sessions in the same building where he arranged wakes.
Over time, Germanus France began styling himself as a 'funeral director' rather than an undertaker—a more modern title reflecting his hands-on role in coordinating every stage of a burial, from parlor wakes to horse-drawn processions. He continued directing funerals from his Bank Street property until 1908, when he sold the building to Joseph Hochrein.
Step inside Spirits Tavern today, and the room feels remarkably familiar to anyone who remembers its days as Hochrein’s—the long wooden bar, the pressed-tin ceiling, and the neighborhood tables where regulars have gathered for decades. Back when he first opened, however, Hochrein held loftier ambitions than running a simple saloon. In directory listings and community notices, he promoted 1901 Bank as a restaurant rather than a bar, hosting society banquets, club dinners, and family celebrations on the main floor while his household lived upstairs.
The Hochrein family remained rooted here for generations. During World War II, Joseph’s son, First Lieutenant George C. Hochrein, listed 1901 Bank as his home address. For decades after the war, neighbors dropped by what was affectionately known as Hochrein’s—an unpretentious watering hole where shipyard hands, dockworkers, and neighbors gathered after their shifts.
After nearly 80 years under the Hochrein family, the corner passed through a few hands and interim names before the previous owner purchased it in 2005 and rechristened it Spirits Tavern, honoring the building's 19th-century undertaker past.
Today, Spirits remains the kind of corner tavern Baltimore does best: an unpretentious neighborhood spot where the bartenders know your name and people from all walks of life stop in for a drink, a conversation or a game of pool. Next time you pull up a stool at this corner spot, take a look around. You’re sitting on ground leased by a Fell family heir, inside walls that held Captain Disney’s grocery stock, Wehr’s fresh milk containers, Germanus France’s caskets and political caucuses, and nearly 80 years of Hochrein toasts.
