Serial brewer Truman Downer was born in Bennington, Vermont. Not much is known about his childhood, but at around the age of twenty he gained employment some 100 miles south of home, at the brewery of Matthew Vassar in Poughkeepsie, New York. Later in the 1820s he moved again to Mottville, Pennsylvania where he was employed by the Mottville Furnace Company.

There he met and married Remembrance Nye, a native of Onondaga County and the sister of Benjamin Nye, one of the partners in the furnace company. Downer became a partner in the company himself and in 1834 he, Nye, and the third Furnace Company partner John H. Earl joined forces to build a brewery in town. Later that same year in October, the Downer's first son Corydon joined his older sister Martha in the family. Sadly Remembrance died in October of the next year, at the young age of 30. Perhaps this was the end of the partnership with his brother-in-law, as no further documentation of their brewery exists.

In 1836 Truman Downer married Mary F. Smith and at some time before 1840 they relocated to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1846 Downer and barrelmaker Thomas F. Wyman established the Spring Street Brewery in that town. Then in 1850 or soon thereafter Downer decided to head west to try his trade in the rapidly expanding city of Chicago, Illinois. There he partnered with J. S. Saberton and together they opened the North Star brewery in around 1854.

Meanwhile in 1851 Truman's daughter Martha married a wealthy Chicago brewer and distiller named Henry Bemis. His son Corydon, who had been learning the beer-making business in the North Star, left the nest in 1860 and purchased a partnership in his brother-in-law's brewery on 16th Street. In 1866 Truman's 29 year old son Arthur was hired by hotelier Amos Hazen Peaslee to be the brewer in his ale brewery in Dubuque, Iowa.   

In 1866 Truman Downer left Chicago and set up a small brewery in Buffalo, New York with his brother(?) William F., a maltster. Two years later Truman was associated with the Fox & Williams Brewery of that city.

In 1872 Truman left Buffalo for an opportunity to purchase Michael Wittman's Keystone Brewery in Erie, Pennsylvania. Downer took on partner Erwin J. Howard in the business later that year. Howard in 1872 was just 26 years of age, a full 45 years younger than his senior partner. Soon Howard began a friendship with Downer's daughter Celestine. He married her in 1873, cementing the the two families not only professionally, but in the eyes of God.

Under the leadership of Downer and Howard the brewery in Erie expanded rapidly. Truman Downer managed the brewery right up until his death on July 25, 1887. He was 86 years of age. Over the next 15 years Howard greatly expanded the Erie brewery. In 1899 it was renamed the Consumers Brewery, then the Wayne Brewing Company. The company would survive Prohibition and the rationing of World War Two, and would finally close in 1951.

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Associated Breweries

Wayne Brewing Company of Erie, Pennsylvania, USA
The Downer & Howard Ale Brewery of Erie, Pennsylvania, USA
Spring Street Brewery of Cleveland, Ohio, USA
J. S. Saberton of Chicago, Illinois, USA
Buffalo Brewing Company, Truman Downer of Buffalo, New York, USA