|
Tyson’s Tavern occupies a building that has been an important part of the Baltimore brewing trade for over 140 years. It is the original home of the National Brewing Company and for many years operated under the name “The Brewery.” The family that purchased the building in the early part of the 1900s from The National Brewing Company operated it as a saloon for nearly a century. Probably the first of all breweries to locate in the Canton area of Baltimore was that of Johann Baier, in 1853, at the northwest corner of Fleet (then 390-392 Canton avenue) and Duncan (then known as Baier’s alley) streets. During that year, two smaller breweries located in Canton, that of Conrad Herzog on the northeast corner of Lancaster (now Fait avenue) and Burke (now Montford avenue) streets; and that of Francis Fortler, corner of Canton avenue (now Fleet street) and Choptank street (now Collington avenue). Baier’s brewery operated until 1871, and Herzog continued until 1866. Gortler conducted his plant about a year and then went into the tavern business at 159 East Lombard (old number) between Central avenue and Eden street. By far the largest and most important of the three Canton breweries was that of Johann Baier. His annual production, according to Charles Schlaffer, whose father, Franz, was a brew master for Baier, was 10,000 barrels a year, possibly a little more. Baier and Herzog maintained the only two plants in Canton from 1854 to 1864. The fourth brewery to locate in Canton was that of George Pabst, in 1860, at the southeast corner of O’Donnell and Baylis (then second) streets. After that period, breweries located in increasing numbers. Including the three plants which located in Canton in 1853, there were 29 breweries in Baltimore directors for the year 1853-1854. Most of them were very small, but the larger were such plants as William Clagett & Co. (East Lombard street and Jones Falls); Samuel Lucas (Hanover and Conway streets); and J. &L. Medstart’s Saratoga Brewery (741-751 West Saratoga street-present number). Johann Baier was born in Gopfersgrun, Bavaria, on February 23, 1823. He came to Baltimore as a youth having had some brewery experience in Germany. He worked for a local brewer in Fells Point before opening “Johann Baier’s Brewery” in this present day building. Baier had his home and saloon on the Fleet street frontage of the new brewery location. In the rear, running northward to Eastern avenue, he erected suitable buildings for brewing purposes. His saloon was conducted by Franz Schlaffer, brew master in the plant. Although Baier several times enlarged his brewery, he still had insufficient cellar capacity to handle his product, even though at the time beer was brewed only between November and April. Early cellars were crudely constructed and frequently generated a gaseous odor which had to be “sweetened” occasionally by lime and forced ventilation. Cellars critical to the cool storage of beer barrels still lay underneath the present day building. Before and during the Civil War, these caverns were part of the Underground Railroad, a secret network that helped slaves and prisoners escape to the north. Franz Schlaffer, who had come from Germany in 1852, became brew master for Johann Baier during the early part of the Civil War. He had experience in lagering beer and was said to have been among the first in Baltimore, by this method, to brew beer of quality in summer sufficiently durable to keep. This required additional cellar space of fairly uniform cool temperature, although this period was nearly twenty-five years in advance of “ice machines”, which were the first real step in refrigeration and temperature control for breweries. Baier’s increased production caused him to go to the Canton Company in September, 1863, to rent the northeast corner of what is now O’Donnell and Dean streets, for a period of ten years. Here he excavated larger cellars, but they were still not conveniently located with respect to his brewery, which was approximately one and one-half mile distant. Wagons transported the beer, which method, due to containers, was unsanitary and uneconomical, yet such was the system with many early breweries. Charles Schlaffer, son of the brew master for Baier, tells that as a small boy he fell from one of the wagons under the foot of a horse which stepped on his finger, necessitating its amputation. Schlaffer also declared that Baier raised his production capacity to something over 10,000 barrels a year, which put him at that time in a class with the largest producers in the area. Baier died on June 6, 1866, at the age of 43 years. Like many another brewer, he did not escape a mortgage for a malt bill. As of December 14, 1863, he became mortgaged to Francis Denmead, malster. Anna M., widow of Johann Baier, in 1869, married a brewery worker in her former husband’s plant by the name of Frederick Wunder. Wunder was not a brew master, but his marriage raised him above Franz Schlaffer, the brew master, a situation untenable to Schlaffer, who resigned and went with the Bay View Brewery, established in 1865, at Eastern avenue and Ponca street. Thus Wunder and his wife, Anna, became proprietors of the former John Baier Brewery. Paul, son of John and Anna Baier, worked in the brewery before and after his father’s death. Paul later drove a beer truck for the Helldorfer and National Breweries, and still later was started in the saloon business at Conkling and Dillon streets, in the 1890s by Charles Schlaffer, manager of the National Brewery. It was her Paul resided until his demise. Wunder, felling his position as co-owner with his new wife, became ambitious and restive at the old location and sought to locate a new and more pretentious brewery at the site of the cellars on O’Donnell and Conkling streets. Anna was convinced that her new husband was right in asserting that the old plant was antiquated, as well as too small and too distant from the lagering cellars. With production already curtailed since the death of the former owner and the absence of Franz Schlaffer, the erstwhile capable brew master, Wunder and his wife failed to realize that they might be over-reaching themselves financially as well as extending themselves in more plant capacity that was required. Nevertheless, by 1872, the brewery consisted of extended lagering premises that incorporated the original cellars; a three-storied brew-house; new cellars for renting out; and a tavern, beer garden and a pavilion for dining and dancing. These additions were all financed by mortgage agreements with their malt suppliers, H. Strauss Brothers & Bell. Thus while Baltimore was moving forward under Ferdinand C. Latrobe, who had been mayor seven times, and her population was nearing 400,000 with the first street cars beginning operation, Anna Wunder experienced the reverse of progress. Asking indulgence of a pallid pun, it must have made poor Anna wonder. Anna Wunder died July 6, 1886. She was buried with her husband, Frederick Wunder, in St. Alphonsus Cemetery, then on the west side of Loney’s Lane, from Biddle Street on the north to the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks on the south. Since their burial the cemetery has been discontinued and a careful check reveals that their bodies have not been reentered in any other cemetery. Anna Wunder and both of her husbands were natives of Bavaria. In 1885 the malt firm foreclosed and possessed the brewery. Members of the Straus family, in the malt business, established the National Brewing Company and operated the former Wunder brewery under that name until the early 1900s when it moved to an expanded operation. Building Name Chronology |