The building that houses "Captain Blyther's Restaurant" was originally built as a home for Captain Samuel Blyther, his wife Anne, and their children. Samuel Blyther was a native of Maine and a mariner. Anne emigrated from Ireland to Philadelphia. In 1858 she moved to San Francisco, that same year she came to Benicia where she met the Captain and married him.

Samuel Blyther, like his neighbor up the street, Captain John Paladini, operated a local freighting business between Benicia and San Francisco. Blyther operated his steamer, the Sophie Hager, for many years, hauling merchandise between Benicia and Bay ports.

Samuel and Anne had four children, two boys, and two girls, their oldest son, Samuel C. died in 1864 at the age of three. The oldest child Julia was married in 1905 to Thomas McDermott, an employee of the Southern Pacific Railroad. They held their wedding reception in the Blyther home. Unfortunately, Thomas would lose his right leg five years later in an accident on the Solano Train Ferry when a section of train No. 15 struck him and the wheels passed over his right leg. Annie, the Blyther's third child, was born in 1871, and their fourth child George, was born three years later in 1874. Five years after the birth of George, in 1879, Captain Blyther died, leaving his widow with three young children to raise.

The Blythers owned two pieces of property on First Street. The first was located on Lot 5 of Semple Slips, on which a house was built in either 1859 or 1861. The second parcel of land was located on Lot 4 of Semple Slips on which the Blyther House was built around 1879, the renovated version of which is the current Captain Blyther's Restaurant.

When Anne Blyther died in 1909, Annie and George continued to live in the home, which they converted to a rooming house in 1910.

George Blyther was a bartender who at one time worked at the saloon which was on the site of the present railroad station, though little is known about George, he does have the dubious distinction of having been arrested in September 1923 for a minor liquor-law violation. A year later in 1924, George’s sister Annie died leaving only himself and his sister Julia, who lived with her husband in Oakland. George died in 1934 bringing the Blythers in Benicia to an end.

This building has been home to a rooming house; purportedly during the war converted to a bordello “The Alamo Rooms” of which we have been told was one of eleven active bordellos in Benicia at the time. In 1982, the eight small rooms upstairs were gutted and replaced with the bar and dining area that is now there. Over the years it has been several types of small shops, but for the past 30 years or so it has been home to three restaurants, the latest, Captain Blyther's Restaurant, was established in 1991.

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