Susannah Oland

Brewing dynasty matriarch

In 1867, Susannah Oland (1818 – 1885), and her nine children, joined her husband John in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. While John worked for the Nova Scotia Railway, Susannah brewed beer She begins brewing in her backyard garden shed using a recipe she had developed earlier. The beer called ‘Brown October Ale’ gains popularity and the Turtle Grove Brewery is born, named after where the brewery was located. In Turtle Grove, Dartmouth, a Mi'kmaq community.

Although Susannah was the chief brewer and had been the inspiration for the business, her name was not on the original incorporation agreement, but make no mistake, Susannah ran the company.

After the death of her husband in 1870, Susannah was left with no control over the brewery. She continued to work at the brewery which had been renamed it the Army & Navy Brewery, in honour of it’s biggest patrons.The business operated under this name for eight years, when Susannah was finally able to take back control of the company and she renamed, yet again, to the S.Oland, Sons and Company, training her sons to be brewmasters. She worked at the brewery for the remainder of her life.

Susannah died in 1885, the company changed its name to the Maritime Brewing & Malting Company. The Halifax explosion in 1917, destroys the brewery and kills Conrad Oland. One branch of the family moved to St. John, New Brunwick later selling to Labatt Brewing. The original company relocated to Halifax and later to St. John and eventually it becomes the Moosehead Brewery.

A photo showing the early days of the Oland family business. Photo credit: Saltwire

Ruins of Army & Navy Brewery operated by Halifax Breweries Limited at Turtle Grove, Dartmouth. Halifax Explosion 1917. Credit: Nova Scotia Archives.

Schooner Lager

The ship on the bottle of Schooner beer is the Bluenose. A replica ship was built by the Oland family as part of a PR campaign to promote their popular Schooner Lager.

References

Wikipedia Contributors. (Revised 2023\). Susannah Oland. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susannah_Oland

Oland Brewery website. (2019). Our History. https://www.olandbrewery.ca/our-history

Moosehead website. Our Story. https://moosehead.ca/our-story/