Update on X00298 - John Williams Brewing History Part 2

Last week I give an update on X00298 and the research on John Williams. This week I'm going to give an update on two of the other research questions.

2. There was a John Williams who supposedly opened a brewery in 1864 in Flesherton (From Whiskey and Wickedness) [D05727]. Is that the same John Williams?

3. His death record lists him as a brewer living in Owen Sound in 1889 [D03737]. Which brewery could he have been working for?

First, as far as the possibility of him opening a brewery in Flesherton, I managed to find a listing in both “The Art and Mystery of Brewing in Ontario” by Ian Bowering [D06545] and “The Directory of Canadian Breweries Past and Present” by Richard L. Sweet [D06546]. Both were under Artemesia:

The first source (Bowering) lists:

Williams, J., brewer, 1864 [D06545]

and the second one (Sweet) lists:

Williams, John; brewer and maltster, 1864 [D06546]

So, it would seem that there is evidence that a John Williams did open a brewery in the area around 1864 and that it was very short-lived. The question still remains though if this is the same John Williams who was the son of Thomas Williams. There was a John Williams living in the area in 1861 and 1871 who was Dutch but had no evident connection to brewing. It could have been the Dutch John Williams or perhaps it was a different John Williams who moved to the area temporarily. There is still more research to be done.

As for the third question, multiple sources suggest that there were two breweries in operation in Owen Sound in 1889: Eaton Brothers Brewery and the Schwan Brewery [D06545, D06546, D06547].



Eaton Brothers started in 1883 and it was believed that they took over from the Riddell & Secord Brewery. The Schwan Brewery was founded in 1885 and believed that they took over from Malone's brewery. It's not clear as to which one John Williams could have worked for. Many of the names of the workers at Schwan's have been documented [D06547] and his name is not among them. But that does not necessarily mean that worked at Eaton Brother's.

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Sources:
[D03737] Ontario Archives of Ontario, Ontario, Canada Deaths, MS935 Reel 54: 395, 5588, 1; digital image, Ancestry.ca, "Ontario, Canada Deaths," Ancestry.ca (6 May 2018). Rec. Date: 3 Sep 2017. Cit. Date: 6 May 2018.

[D03739] 1861 census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, Peel, sub-district Brampton, Brampton, p. 15; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.ca (accessed 13 May 2018). Rec. Date: 5 Feb 2018. Cit. Date: 13 May 2018.

[D05727] Cotton, Larry D., Whiskey and Wickedness Volume V - Wellington and Grey Counties, Ontario. Self-published, 2017.

[D06545] Bowering, Ian, The Art and Mystery of Brewing in Ontario. Burnstown, Ontario, 1988.

[D06546] Sweet, Richard L., Directory of Canadian Breweries (Past and Present); Second Edition. Saskatoon, 1996.

[D06547] Schwan, Terry, The Historic Schwan Breweries with abridged family genealogy. Guelph, 2013.