History: Emery O. Walker

Emery Osgood Walker brewed in Portland and Saco. Walker was born in Portland in November 1844, but then lived with his family on a farm in Livermore, in central Maine, until around 1852. The Walkers then moved to Portland, where his father, Benjamin F. Walker, began brewing.

Emery served in the Civil War, enlisting in Company B, Maine 25th Infantry Unit in September 1962 at age eighteen. He would be promoted to Full Corporal in May 1863 and later First Sergeant. He mustered out of Savannah, Georgia in August 1865.

Emery married Nellie L. Purrington—also known as “Ellen”—of Gorham, in May 1869. He was then brewing at the family house on 25 Adler. Ellen and Emery lived with the family there, and together possessed $1200 in their personal estate.

They moved to Saco and Emery began brewing small beer and soda there in 1872, at the corner of Water and Main. By 1875, he had moved the brewhouse to the rear of 79 Main Street.

But by 1880, he had quit brewing commercially. Emery and Ellen lived in Gorham; he was farming and she kept house. Emery Walker died in March 1887, at age 42.

See the precise locations of Walker’s brewhouses on the Maine Beer Map.