Brewer is a city in Penobscot County, incorporated on February 22, 1812 from a portion of Orrington and named for an early settler from Worcester, Massachusetts - Col. John Brewer - who arrived in 1770 and promptly began to build a mill on the nearby Segeunkedunk Stream in what is now South Brewer. The first settlement was known as New Worcester.
In his later years, beginning in 1800, Col. Brewer became the first postmaster, a post he held for thirty years.
In 1841 it annexed land from Orrington, Dedham, and Bucksport. Later (1846, 1855) it gave up land to Eddington, and in 1852 to Holden. Left with only a little over 15 square miles, it incorporated as a city on March 30, 1880.
The community has long been a paper making center, primarily based on the Eastern Manufacturing (later Eastern Fine Paper) Company in South Brewer on the banks of the Penobscot River.
Eighty Chamberlain Street in Brewer is the birthplace of Civil War General and Governor Joshua L. Chamberlain.
