Alonzo A. Blossom was born to Cynthia and Levi Blossom Sr, a merchant in Lenox, New York.  The Blossom family were old American money.  Their ancestor, Peter Blossom, had emigrated to Massachusetts from Holland in 1629 at age 6, and the family remained within 300 miles of the landing spot in Boston for the next two centuries.

However two of Levi's boys were not content to stay in the luxurious East.  In the 1830s Alonzo's older brother older brother, Levi Jr. moved 700 miles due west to Milwaukee in the Territory of Wisconsin.  At the time, Milwaukee was at the western edge of America.  It was a town so new it had not yet decided on how to spell its name.

Upon his father's death Levi purchased  partially-built brewery through a sheriff's sale.  It was a three-story brick structure fed by a tributary of the Milwaukee River.  It was probably the largest firm of its kind in Milwaukee, and quite possibly the Territory of Wisconsin.  Alonzo joined his brother in Milwaukee to help finish construction and run the new brewery.

They called the new brewery the Eagle, and with the inheritance from their father they had the manufactory up and running in no time.  They had timed it right.  In three years the first large wave of German immigrants would begin to arrive, and the Eagle was there waiting for them. 

The brewery was in Levi's name, and Alonzo, being seven years his junior, was an employee.  It was as profitable as a brewery in Milwaukee, and it made both men wealthy (wealthier) in a short period of time.

In 1848 Alonzo married Frances Elizabeth Williams in New York, another descendant of vintage American stock.  In that same year Alonzo purchased a controling interest in the Eagle from his brother.  He ran the brewery as a sole proprietor for four years before a mysterious fire destroyed it the night of November 16th, 1852.  Although the building was insured, the proceeds were not enough to cover the losses, and the balance was settled in court.  Alonzo was sued by his creditors, the pricipals of which were his brother Levi and his wife Cornelia. Alonzo left town humiliated.

By 1860 Alonzo and Frances had relocated to Dubuque, Iowa where Alonzo was listed as a merchant in the census.  He sold coal, and was a farmer, and although the Blossoms probably had financial help from back east, one can only imagine the stuggles these Yankees had trying to rebuild their lost esteem on the lawless streets of Dubuque.

By 1880 60-year-old Alonzo and his wife had left the frontier and retired to the more civilized society of Chicago, and that is where they remained for the rest of their days.  And they were many.  Frances Blossom died on June 27th 1908.  Alonzo died less than four years later, on the 10th of February, 1912 at the age of 91 years.  They were buried in Dubuque. 

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