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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Mayer Lehman Biography MAYER LEHMAN, merchant, next to the senior partner in the conspicuous firm of Lehman Bro's, was born in Rimpar, near Wurzburg, Germany, Jan. 9, 1830. He had the advantage of a sound education in the public schools of Wurzburg, and in 1850 followed his brothers, Emanuel and Henry, to the United States. After a year of experience in the store of Lehman Bro's in Montgomery, he resolved to engage in business on his own account, and in January, 1851, started a store of his own in Montgomery, which he carried on until 1853. He then joined his two brothers in the partnership of Lehman Bro's. Henry died in 1855, and from that time to the present the house has carried on a prosperous trade under the direction of Emanuel and Mayer Lehman. Mr. Lehman saw much of the operations of the Civil War, and experienced the wild excitement of that period which strongly moved every resident of the South. Montgomery was the theater of stirring scenes. In 1864, the Governor of Alabama appointed Mr. Lehman a Commissioner to visit and look after the interests of Alabama soldiers, held prisoners of war in the North. Other tenders of office were made to him frequently but declined. In 1867, Mr. Lehman came to New York and has ever since made the metropolis his home He was one of the organizers of the Cotton Exchange and has been actively identified with its management, as a director and otherwise, until the present time. His brother and he are naturally proud of a business career, which, extending over a full half century, has been attended with success from the day of its first small beginning. Mr. Lehman has been active in the railroad, land, industrial and mining enterprises of his house, and was one of twenty men who established the first important iron furnace in the South before the war. He is a progressive, clear headed and capable man, and is a director of The Hamilton Bank, The American Cotton Oil Co., The Union Oil Co., of Providence, R. I., and The N. K. Fairbank Co., of Chicago. Highly esteemed in private life, he takes an active interest in philanthropic work, is a member of The Harmonic club, was a trustee of Temple Emanu-El and of a number of charitable societies, and is a generous giver, being especially active in Mount Sinai Hospital and Training School. Married in 1858 in New Orleans to Babetta, daughter of Isaac Newgass, he is the father of several. children, of whom those living are Sigmund M., Hattie, Settie, Clara, Arthur, Irving and Herbert. Henry Hall, ed., America’s Successful Men of Affairs, an Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography. (New York: New York Printing Company, 1895) 392.
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