Eagle River Brewery

07 Sep 2021, last revised 14 Feb 2024

Seeing Eagle River today, it's difficult to imagine how such a small town was home to not just one, but two early breweries. Established in 1843, Eagle River was a port town through which nearby copper mines received supplies and exported their copper (1,5). A long pier jutted into Lake Superior, and freight was transported between ships and a warehouse with hand cars on a rail track (1). Only a few pilings, mostly below the water line, remain today.

Frank Knivel was born in Prussia on 25 May 1822 (9) and immigrated to the Copper Country in 1850, where he spent four years working for the mines (1). In 1854, he moved to Eagle River and constructed a brewery, which started operations in 1855 (1). An early map (10) shows the Knivel property located on the south end of Elm St., which matches Monette's (5) description of its location relative to the river bend. It consisted of three buildings, one had three stories and a full basement, another housed huge wooden vats, and the third was undescribed by Monette (5).

The Eagle River Brewery appears to have been the first brewery in the Copper Country, and one of the first in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (6). It was the only brewery in Keweenaw Country that used bottles with signature embossing. Foley & Smith from Eagle Harbor used embossed bottles, but they were strictly bottlers, not brewers. The second brewery in Eagle River, the Joseph Clemens brewery, burned down in June 1867 when fire destroyed almost the entire business section of town (8). It was listed in the Michigan State directories in 1863 (19) and 1867 (20), but not in 1873 (21), suggesting that it was not rebuilt after the fire and thus was gone before lager beer started to be bottled in the late 1870s.

In 1865, the Eagle River Brewery produced an estimated 670 barrels of beer (25). In 1877, it produced and sold 888 barrels of beer (26). A sales slip header states that they manufactured lager beer, present use, and XXX ales. Like with other pioneer breweries in the Copper Country, bottling commenced following the advent of pasteurization. In 1882, the brewery bottled two-thirds of the 1,200 barrels it could produce annually (1). This high percentage of bottling suggests that their main market was supplying the surrounding mining towns as opposed to primarily supplying barrels and kegs to saloons in Eagle River, which had a population of only 250 in 1877 (4).

Today we are left with nine bottles from Eagle River Brewery. All feature a lightning stopper top and date to the 1880s. The embossing specify four partnerships:

• F. KNIVEL
• F. KNIVEL & BRO.
• F. KNIVEL & SONS
• F. KNIVEL JR AGENT or FRANK KNIVEL JR AGENT

Curiously, all four partnerships had one bottle made by Chase Valley Glass Co. No. 2, which dates to 1880-1881 (14), although Wisconsin Glass Co. may have used the C. V. No. 2 mark in subsequent years. Why such partnership changes in such a short time period? The 1856 directory listed Knivel Brothers (with name misspelled) as brewers, and specified them as "Francis and Antony" (2). This listing indicated that Frank's brother was involved early in the brewery's operation, possibly from its start. The 1879 directory listed them as "Frank and Anton" (3). The 1880 U.S. Federal Census recorded Anton residing in Frank's household (11). This early partnership places the two F. KNIVEL & BRO. bottles as the first two bottles.

Anton died on 23 Jun 1881 at the age of 62 in Keweenaw County (24), and was buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Cliff (27). Anton's death might explain why Frank then took on his sons as partners. Perhaps Frank ordered the F. KNIVEL bottle during a brief transition between partnerships, especially when his sons were only 19 and 22 at the time of Anton's death. It is also interesting to note that #101 and #104 have the same misspelling of "Knivel", suggesting that these bottles may have been produced sequentially. Census records (11) show that Frank A. Knivel Jr. and John Knivel were Frank's two sons, both born in Michigan, as referenced on the two bottles embossed with F. KNIVEL & SONS. The last set of bottles bears F. KNIVEL JR AGT or FRANK KNIVEL JR AGT. The last two bottles of this set, #107 and #107a, (technically variants with the same plate) bear the maker's marks of C & Co. and C & CO LIM. Cunninghams & Co. involved a limited partnership from c.1886 (7). Thus, these two bottles were the last bottles used. Despite the name changes on the bottles, the Michigan State directories continued to list Knivel Bros (22) or F. Knivel & Bro. as the brewers (23), although the same firm name could have been referring to Frank Jr. and John.

We could not find direct historical evidence of when the brewery closed. Van Wieren (15) dated the closing of the Eagle River Brewery to 1888. When Frank's wife, Sophia, died on 23 Aug 1884 (17), she was buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Cliff (27), suggesting that the family was still in Eagle River at that time. At some point, however, the family, except for Frank Jr, moved to Detroit (28). The 1887 Michigan State directory listed F. Knivel & Bro. as brewers in Eagle River (23), and then the 1888 and 1889 Detroit City directories listed Frank Sr. and John as residents of Detroit (12,13). Frank's will and probate record (on ancestry.com) indicated that he was an inhabitant of Detroit at the time of his death on 04 Jul 1890. It also stated that John resided in Detroit and Frank Jr. resided in Eagle River. Frank Sr. was buried in Mount Elliott Cemetery in Detroit (9). In Oct 1890, the remains of Anton and Sophia were disinterred and transported to Detroit, where they were buried alongside Frank Sr. (27) at Mount Elliott Cemetery (17,18). The notice of Frank's death, however, stated that the brewery "was in operation until about four years ago, when he moved to Detroit" (28), which dates the closing to about 1886. Curiously though, the 1889 directory listed F. Knivel as a brewer in Eagle River (29). Did Frank Jr. run the brewery alone after the family left, or did the brewery close at that point? Frank Jr's obituary stated, "When a young man, Mr. Knivel worked as a brewer in the establishment conducted by his father at Eagle River and later he conducted the business" (16), which suggests that Frank Jr. ran the business on his own for a period of time. Magnaghi (6) stated that the brewery closed in 1910, which matches the date Van Wieren (15) gave for the closing of the "Eagle River Brewing Co." We are unfamiliar with this company, and its name and given start date of 1899 may have originated as a transcription error with Calumet Brewing Co. in a 1997 Daily Mining Gazette article. Whenever it closed, the stated cause was a lack of shipping facilities given that no railroad connected Keweenaw County (33). Railroads that connected the Keweenaw to Calumet were not constructed until 1905-1908 (41,42,43).

Another mystery lies in the embossing of the later bottles: F. KNIVEL JR AGT or FRANK KNIVEL JR AGT. In what way was Frank Jr. an agent for the brewery? If he did run the brewery alone, either before or after his family moved, he should have been manager or proprietor, not agent. Alternatively, he could have owned the bottling operation and bottled the brewery's beer as an agent, while his father ran the brewery. In Jun 1889, he was proprietor of the bottling works in Eagle River and agent for Jos. Bosch & Co. (30), so the bottling works endured after the closing of the brewery and was owned by Frank Jr. He sold beer by the glass or bottle (30), and in Aug 1889, he purchased a new beer wagon (31). He then sold the bottling works to Foley & Smith in May 1890 and it was moved to Eagle Harbor (32). The brewery, however, was part of Frank Sr's estate when he died on 04 Jul 1890, according to the will and probate record.

In Oct 1890, John visited friends and relatives in Eagle River and apparently looked over the property of the Knivel estate (34). It was reported that the brewery could be leased or purchased (34). Despite calls in 1890 and 1891 to support local business in Eagle River by re-opening the brewery (35,36,38), it became a thing of the past (37).

When Frank Jr. left Eagle River in Nov 1890 for Lake Linden, he parted with a poem (39):

• We leave our revered homes,
• Which causes our hearts to yearn;
• For the building of a railroad,
• And then we will return.


• When the mines shall be developed,
• It will cause us to rejoice,
• When there'll be plenty work and labor,
• And business will have a chance.


• Then come, ye men with money,
• And listen to what we say;
• The mineral wealth of Keweenaw,
• If managed right, will pay.

In Apr 1902, John Knivel and Mat D. Wertin visited Eagle River to overlook the old brewery with the possibility of it being operated again (40), but it didn't happen.

The Knivel bottles rank among the most esteemed beer bottles of the Copper Country. They represent the pioneer mining region of the Keweenaw Peninsula distant from the larger cities of Calumet/Laurium and Houghton/Hancock. The copper mines in this region had their heydays in the mid-1800s and closed prior to 1900. Since the publication of Old Copper Country Bottles, diggers have found a few more specimens of these bottles, especially #102, and the first intact example of #104. They all remain highly desirable and anyone should feel very fortunate to have a Knivel bottle in their collection.

Follow the history of Frank Jr. and John Knivel on the Red Jacket Bottling Works page.

References

1. anonymous. 1883. History of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Western Historical Company. Chicago, IL.
2. R. L. Polk & Co. 1856. State of Michigan Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1856-7. H. Huntington Lee & Co. & James Sutherland. Detroit, MI.
3. R. L. Polk & Co. 1879. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1879. The Detroit Free Press Company. Detroit, MI.
4. R. L. Polk & Co. 1877. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1877. R. L. Polk & Co. Detroit, MI.
5. Monette, C. J. 1978. The History of Eagle River Michigan. Welden H. Curtin. Lake Linden, MI.
6. Magnaghi, R. M. 2015. Upper Peninsula Beer: A History of Brewing Above the Bridge. American Palate. Charleston, SC.
7. Lockhart, B., B. Schriever, B. Lindsey, and C. Serr. 2014. Cunningham family glass holdings. In: Encyclopedia of Manufacturer's Marks on Historic Bottles. posted on Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website. https://sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/Cunningham.pdf
8. anonymous. (1867, Jun 27). Great conflagration at Eagle River. Portage Lake Mining Gazette (Houghton, MI). p.1.
9. Find a Grave. accessed Sept 2021. Frank Knivel. findagrave.com/memorial/94823993/frank-knivel
10. Map of Eagle River Township. Surveyed by Schaller (1851) and Hulbert & Lum (1855). Michigan Tech Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections. MTU Archives Map Collection. Map OVSZ 8-D-001.
11. U.S. Census Bureau. 1880 United States Federal Census. accessed on ancestry.com.
12. R. L. Polk & Co. 1888. Detroit City Directory for 1888. Detroit Free Press Book and Job Printing Company.
13. R. L. Polk & Co. 1889. Detroit City Directory for 1889. Detroit Free Press Book and Job Printing Company.
14. Lockhart, B., B. Schriever, C. Serr, and B. Lindsey. 2014. Chase Valley Glass Co. In: Encyclopedia of Manufacturer's Marks on Historic Bottles. posted on Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website. https://sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/ChaseValleyGlass.pdf
15. Van Wieren, D. P. 1995. American Breweries II. Eastern Coast Brewiana Association. West Point, PA.
16. anonymous. (1912, Feb 06). Death claims old resident. The Calumet News (Calumet, MI). p.7.
17. Find a Grave. accessed Sept 2021. Sophia Noeker Knivel. findagrave.com/memorial/145377966/sophia-knivel
18. Find a Grave. accessed Sept 2021. Anton Knivel. findagrave.com/memorial/145379644/anton-knivel
19. C. F. Clark. 1863. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1863-4. Charles F. Clark. Detroit, MI.
20. Chapin & Brother. 1867. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1867-8. The Detroit Post Company, Printers. Detroit, MI.
21. J.E. Scripps & R.L. Polk, compliers. 1973. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory for 1873. Tribune Book and Job Office. Detroit.
22. R. L. Polk & Co. 1883. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1883. R. L. Polk & Co. Detroit, MI.
23. R. L. Polk & Co. 1887. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1887-88. R. L. Polk & Co. Detroit, MI.
24. Michigan Department of Health & Human Services. accessed Oct 2021. Genealogical Death Indexing System. Anton Knivel. vitalstats.michigan.gov/osr/gendisx/scripts/individual.asp?UniqueID=213501
25. Records of the Internal Revenue Service. Internal Revenue Assessment Lists for Michigan, 1862-1918. The National Archives at Washington, DC (accessed on ancestry.com).
26. anonymous. (1879, Jul 24). Amount of Lager Beer Made and Sold in this District Last Year. Portage Lake Mining Gazette (Houghton, MI). p. 3.
27. anonymous. (1890, Oct 17). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
28. anonymous. (1890, Jul 11). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
29. R. L. Polk & Co. 1889. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1889-90. R. L. Polk & Co. Detroit, MI.
30. anonymous. (1889, Jun 28). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
31. anonymous. (1889, Aug 16). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
32. anonymous. (1890, May 08). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
33. anonymous. (1890, Oct 17). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
34. anonymous. 1890, Oct 03). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
35. anonymous. (1890, Jul 18). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
36. anonymous. (1890, Aug 08). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
37. anonymous. (1890, Dec 12). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
38. anonymous. (1891, May 22). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
39. anonymous. (1890, Nov 14). Keweenaw Jottings. Calumet and Red Jacket News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
40. anonymous. (1902, Apr 17). The City. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 4.
41. anonymous. (1905, Aug 07). Before Winter. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 6.
42. anonymous. (1905, Oct 02). Two Railroads. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 7.
43. anonymous. (1908, May 27). Expects to Complete the Work First Week in June. The Calumet News (Calumet, MI). p. 8.