Davis & Jesse Embree Brewery (1812-1824)
Davis Embree opened his brewery at the foot of Race Street in January, 1812; his brother Jesse joined him by 1814. They were also involved in real estate and steamboat ventures. The brewery was well-regarded, but the Embrees ran into "financial embarrassment" in real estate investments. By the mid-1820's, the brewery was closed, and Davis Embree became fully engaged in the steamboat trade.
Travels through the Western Country in the Summer of 1816, David Thomas (1819)
"Davis Embree was a brewer in Cincinnati at the beginning of 1814, when his brother Jesse joined him. Their affairs were connected from that time to the death of the latter... In the latter period of their partnership they owned for several years a steamboat, which at first Jesse commanded, but afterwards Davis was her commander, and thereby became familiar with steam navigation on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Explosions of boilers, running into sawyers or snags and upon shifting shoals, and racing of boats were so common as to make the navigation of these rivers the most dangerous that could be made... the 'Cincinnati' was wrecked, some time before May, 1825..." (John Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope, History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with Genealogical and Biographical Sketches, Philadelphia: Louis H Everts (1881), p 535.)
Lloyd's Steamboat Directory and Disasters on the Western Waters, James T. Lloyd (1856)
Steamship Guyandotte (year unknown)
Embree Davis grave
Jesse Embree died in Arkansas Territory after contracting a fever while commanding a steamboat in 1823.
Davis Embree enjoyed a long career as a riverboat captain, river safety advocate and publisher (The Western Boatman); he eventually retired to a farm in Enon, Ohio where he died in 1870.
