Rhoda Carpenter was born in Guilford, Vermont.  She along with her husband John O. McInhill and her sons Edward and John Victor ran the McInhill Brewery of Aurora, Illinois.  At age 20 she and her husband were married in Jefferson County New York.   McInhill was a brewer seven years her senior and had a stand in Fort Edward.  Rhoda apparently took an interest in the firm as early census reports have her listed as a brewer alongside her husband.  The couple spent 19 years operating their New York brewery before setting out for the west, to Aurora, Illinois.

Aurora in the late 1840s was a small, newly incorporated village in northeastern Illinois.  Forty miles to the east Chicago was in the midst of a phenominal boom.  In 1840 the city's population was barely 4000.  By the time the McInhills arrived in Illinois, Chicago boasted nearly 30,000 citizens.  With its many railroads and limitless fresh water, Chicago promised to be the center of industry and wealth of the American West, and surely it would take neighboring towns like Aurora, along in its ascendence. 

The McInhills purchased the Wade Distillery in Aurora in 1849.  The firm was a one-building, one man operation, ideally located on the west bank of the Fox River.   By this time the McInhill boys Edward (born 1830) and John Victor (born 1834) were old enough to help, and they were duly put to work.

After about three years, broken equipment and a raise in taxes created expenses for the distillery that could not be overcome by revenues.  In response, the McInhills converted their facility into an ale brewery.  The brewery was decidedly more profitable, and the old building was expanded upon greatly with new structures, new machinery and a series of ageing vaults.

The oldest son Edward died in 1864 at the height of the family's success.  When Rhoda died on September 20th, 1869, it left John Sr., now aged 71, and John Victor to continue the brewery alone.  John Sr. died on August 24th, 1872.  John Victor carried on for the first time with only hired help.  John Victor's children were not yet old enough to participate in the brewery and were being raised in a separate house by his wife Bridget.

In 1884, at age 54, John finally sold his brewery to J. P. Dostal.  Dostal ran it under his name until 1890, at which time the brewery was renamed the Aurora Brewing Company.  The brewery ultimately closed - after a 13 year pause brought by Prohibition - in 1939.  John Victor had died in 1896.

Learn more at the links below

Associated Breweries