Today is the birthday of Johann Baptist Wager, known more commonly after emigrating to the U.S. as John B. Wager (August 18, 1821-December 17, 1899). He was bornin Dautmergen, Wuerttemberg, Germany, but came to American when he was 31, in 1852, and settled in Ohio, where he met and married Alwina ‘Aline’ Becherer. The couple had twelve children. When she passed away in 1868, he remarried Maria ‘Mary’ Anna Schaub in 1870, and the pair had eight more, so I suspect it was a very full house. Somehow, he found the time to open the John Wager Brewery in Dayton, Ohio, in 1866.

Here’s some history of the brewery’s early years:

John B. Wager established the Hydraulic Brewery at the South West corner of 1st & Beckel Streets in Dayton in 1866. Four years later, Wager sold the business to father and son investors, Henry and Clem Ferneding. The two sold shares of their business to Nicholas Metz and Anton Braun. In 1877, Metz sold his share to Braun and the company was renamed Anton Braun Brewing Co. Braun died in 1880 and the business went into the hands of Nicholas Thomas and George Weddle.

The brewery went through several owners and name changes, and was most often known as the Hydraulic Brewery, and after prohibition was repealed as the Mill Valley Brewing Co.

Here’s Wager’s short obituary from the Dayton Daily News.