Anchor Brewery (Joseph Knight Boswell)

Boswell's first move, and a rented one. Quebec heritage records have Joseph Knight Boswell leasing John Racey's installations in 1842 to establish the Anchor Brewery, ten years before he built the larger Saint-Vallier operation. The archive keeps it as its own record because a leased plant trading under a different name is a different brewery, even when the man behind it is the same one. Everything Boswell later became — and the chain that runs from him to National Breweries and Dow — starts in somebody else's building.

1. 1842
   Boswell leases Racey's installations

   Establishes the Anchor Brewery at Québec.

2. 1852
   Moves to the Saint-Vallier brewery

   The larger operation, on the former Talon site.

Sources

1. recordProbable

   Brewery record taken from Tally's Quebec master, Pass 83, which cited https://www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?id=234469&methode=consulter&type=bien for this entry. The cited page has not been opened by the archive.

   Tally's Quebec master, Pass 83 (research workbook) · Tally's Beer Universe research workbook · 2026

   CommercialMedium reliabilityAccessed 2026-08-19Reviewed 2026-08-19
2. historyProbable

   Dated evidence as recorded in Quebec Pass 83: 1842, 1852.

   Tally's Quebec master, Pass 83 (research workbook) · Tally's Beer Universe research workbook · 2026

   CommercialMedium reliabilityAccessed 2026-08-19Reviewed 2026-08-19

Only the claims above are sourced. Everything else on this page is the archive's own research and has not yet been tied to a document — which is worth knowing rather than hiding.