Hydraulics - Table of Contents

The Hydraulic Brewery
686-702 Carroll St.

How the brewery and the area received its name

In 1827, the Buffalo Hydraulic Association was incorporated with a capital of $25,000 with the option of increasing it to $50,000. The project of the association was to supply the village of Buffalo with water and "create mill privileges."

Click on illustration for larger size

The latter was to be accomplished by extending a canal from Buffalo Creek,commencing at a point about 3 and a half miles from the village, to Little Buffalo Creek at the eastern boundary of the corporation about half a mile from Main Street There a sufficient waterfallwould be obtained to accomplish the desired purpose.

Excavation of this canal which was to be nearly four miles long was started inthe summer of 1821, and by the following year was so far completed that the feasibility of the plan was demonstrated. On November first, the canal was opened.

This was the occasion of another celebration in the village. Prominent villagers were the guests of the company at a sumptuous dinner served at Howard and Shaw's Inn. A roasted ox, cider, whiskey, ale and delicacies in abundance were served to the guests. Within a short time, a sawmill. gristmill, woolen factory, hat body factory, last factory, and a BREWERY were built and operated in this vicinity.

-- The Cradle of the Queen City, A History of Buffalo, by Robert W. Bingham, 1931


Time Line

1827 - Hydraulic Association incorporated

1831 - William W. Sloan born in Belfast, Ireland

1832 - Buffalo incorporates as a city

1849 - Sloan immigrates to America

1856 - Sloan buys the Gilman and Barton Brewery, erecting in its place what was then a modern malt-house, the largest in Buffalo

1861 - Civil War starts

1869-70 - 1686 barrels brewed

1885 - 3000 barrels brewed

1886 - Letterhead

1892 - Also VP and Treasurer of Thompson-Houston Elec.Light Co.

1892 - Lived at 869 Delaware Ave.

1901 - (May) William Wilson Sloan dies

1901 - (September) Seitz Malting of Easton, Pa. buys Sloan's Malt House



See also:


Research by Peter Jablonski
Page by Chuck LaChiusa
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