Notes:
Dayton Brewery
About 1820 Henry Brown built a brick brewery on Lot 105, the south side of Second Street, west of Jefferson Street. James L. Morris bought it in October 1822, and in 1823 Michael Ott was the owner. After Michael's death a year later the brewery was owned by Brabham and Bartlow.
By 1828 George C. Davis had taken over and built a new brick brewery on Jefferson Street, between First and Water Street. Thomas Hawley & Co., the company standing for William Price, Thomas Wood and Jacob Judy, made the first brew there on October 15, 1828. They manufactured beer, porter and ale and had a fine trade.
John W. Harries bought the Dayton Brewery about 1831. In the book A Boy's Impression of Dayton 64 Years Ago, Michael Ohmer writes the following:
"Mr. John W. Harries was probably the largest dealer in grain. His ale was of the best make. It had a great reputation. He did a large business... He was a souled gentleman, you would no more enter his office when he would say 'have a glass of ale'..."
John W. Harries stored the charcoal he used for making malt in a house made from a pirogue used to carry Samuel Thompson's party to Dayton in 1796. The pirogue was a long, narrow boat, pointed at each end, with boards on each side on which the men walked while poling the boat upstream.
After they arrived at their destination, landing at what is now St. Clair Street, the pirogue was carefully taken apart piece by piece and rebuilt on dry land, becoming the first house in Dayton. The house stood for eighty-four years. John W. Harries owned it for many years. It was also used as a hiding place for slaves who were trying to make their way to Canada.
After John W. Harries death in 1873, his son Charles took over the business. The brewery was out of operation by 1880.
BIOGRAPHY ? JOHN W. HARRIES
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John W. Harries, son of William and Catherine (Waters) Harries, was born in 1783, in the town of Gebledewyll, in Caremarthenshire, Wales. In 1810 John married Mary Williams and settled on a farm near where he was born. Five children were born there. In the fall of 1823 John and his family emigrated to the United States, landing in New York, where he ran a grocery business. It was there that his wife Mary died.
In 1826 he married Mary Elizabeth Conklin, of Huntington, Long Island.
In the spring of 1829 John and his family came to Ohio, arriving in Dayton on July 5th on the canal boat Experiment, having made the trip from Cincinnati by way of the canal. Shortly after reaching Dayton, Mr. Harries started brewing, a business he stayed with until his death on February 22, 1873.
John?s secret to success was the promptness and accuracy of his decisions. While others reasoned and argued, he promptly resolved and acted. The following words, written at the time of his death are reproduced here:
John W. Harries is dead, and the places which knew him so long and so well shall know him no more forever. His friendly face, his familiar form, his cordial greetings, will never be seen or heard on earth again. On the 22nd of February. at 1:10 P. M.. he breathed his last. For several days he seemed on the point of dissolution, but such were his amazing tenacity of life and strength of will that he appeared to set death itself at defiance. Long and hard as the struggle was, however, he fell asleep at last, and a strong man passed away as peacefully as a tired infant goes to rest in its mother's lap. Mr. Harries was a self-made man. Born in Wales, he came to this country in early manhood in quest of fortune, relying upon his character, his energy and his brains. His career strongly illustrates all the virtues, while it was far from most of the faults which characterize that remarkable class of brave men who rise by the inherent force of their own native and unaided powers. He earned his money by the sweat of his brow, and yet did not unduly estimate its value, nor pride himself upon its possession. In its use he was as liberal as a prince. Poverty could not depress; fortune did not spoil him. Wealth made him neither ambitious of the countenance, or acquaintance of the rich or great, nor forgetful of the rights and feelings of the poor.
In all his relations or dealings with men he was singularly just. He never forgot old friends or past favors. He had no false pride and never turned his back on a poor man. He was in many particulars a very remarkable person. Fixed in his convictions, he was in no wise intolerant of the opinions of other people. With few advantages of early education native shrewdness, fine common sense, and close observation supplied the place of scholastic attainment. He was a reader of men, not of books. Without public position of any sort, he was the best known, the most popular and influential man in the community.
BIOGRAPHY ? CHARLES HARRIES
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Charles Harries was born in New York about 1827. He was the son of John W. and Mary Elizabeth (Conklin) Harries. He was but a year old when his parents brought him to Dayton.
Known to his friends as "Uncle Charlie", he was well known for his good nature and kind hearted manner.
Charles took over the Dayton Brewery in 1873, after the death of his father. Charles, himself, passed away on May 13. 1907.