Republished from our newsletter, Atsmi Uvsari, Issue 17, Summer/Autumn 2007, written by Rochelle Kaplan.
Solomon Carvalho
Jewish artist and explorer
Among the first Jewish adventurers to spend time in Utah was South Carolina-born Solomon Nunes Carvalho, who, as the official photographer and artist, accompanied Colonel John Fremont on his 1853-1854 expedition from Missouri across the Rocky Mountains. A fire later destroyed most of Carvalho’s plates and prints, but his journal chronicles the trip. Fremont’s group, lean and exhausted after a winter in the Wasatch Mountains, stumbled into the Mormon community of Parowan, where residents nursed Carvalho back to health. The artist then traveled to Salt Lake City where he befriended and painted portraits of Brigham Young and other prominent citizens. Carvalho only hints at his Judaism in his journal:
He describes a porcupine with its quills burned off, “leaving a thick, hard skin, very like that of a hog. The meat was white, but very fat, it looked very much like pork. My stomach revolted at it, and I sat hungry around our mess, looking at my comrades enjoying it.”
“The habits of the horse and mule are clean; their food consists of grass and grain; but I was satisfied that my body could receive no benefit from eating the flesh of an animal that lived on carrion.”
“The blood I never partook of.”
Carvalho, in 1869, was living in Manhattan, NY, with two businesses listed in a directory, one for photography and the other for steam-heating systems, for which he held several patents.
Jews migrate West
Beginning in the mid-1850s
Perhaps spurred on by Carvalho’s account and those of other pioneers, Jews migrated to the West. Lured by adventure, religious and personal freedom, and economic opportunity, some people traveled overland from Independence, Missouri, the gateway across the Plains, to the West. Others took ships south along the Atlantic Coast, around Cape Horn to the Pacific Ocean, and then north to San Francisco. Still others went along the Atlantic Coast to Panama, trekked across the jungle to the Pacific, and then booked passage to San Francisco. (There was no Panama Canal then). There they joined wagon trains headed to Utah.
Jews who took the overland route included Solomon Carvalho, Julius and Fanny Brooks, Nicholas and Eli Ransohoff, Abraham and Adam Kuhn, Gumpert Goldberg, and Meyer Cohn. Among Jews who took the all water route around South America were Abraham Watters, Aaron Greenewald, and Charles Popper. Jews who took the Panama route included the Auerbach brothers, Moses Hirschman, and Ichel Watters. Except for Carvalho, all the others put down roots in Utah. Jews, at various times, lived in Alta, Bingham, Brigham City, Castledale, Corinne, Echo, Eureka, Gunnison, Logan, Ogden, Ophir, Park City, Provo, Richfield, Salt Lake City, Silver City, Silver Reef, Tooele, and Vernal. Because Brigham Young long felt the only suitable vocation for Mormons was agriculture, business opportunities opened for Jews and other Gentiles (non-Mormons).
A February 1865 article in The Hebrew, one of several Jewish newspapers published in America, mentioned twenty Jewish men and two families living in Salt Lake City who did good business there and closed their stores for the High Holidays. A letter to the same paper in October 1865 noted that Fred Auerbach, J. M. Ellis, and Max Wehlgemuth called for a meeting of Israelites in August, and shortly thereafter, the community bought prayer books, a Torah, and Talisim. Brigham Young offered free use of a hall for religious services. During Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, fifty Jews attended services, including some from Bozeman in Montana Territory, some 350 miles to the north. In October 1865, seven Jewish families lived in Salt Lake City.
Frederick Auerbach and his brothers Samuel and Theodore, from Prussia, established dry goods and clothing shops in mining towns in California in the 1850s, and moved to Great Salt Lake City, as it was then known, in 1863. Frederick Auerbach found a store location with the help of Brigham Young. Theodore Auerbach, after his divorce, moved to New York City. Auerbach’s expanded operations with stores in Corinne, Ogden, and Salt Lake City. An 1876 ad for the store mentioned zephyrs (light weight clothing) and that new invention, the automatic umbrella, among the items for sale. The Auerbach brothers’ business, by 1883, reached $500,000 in sales and real estate. The Salt Lake department store, one of the largest in the West, closed only in 1977.
Another set of Prussian-born brothers, the Ransohoffs, set up shop in 1858 in Salt Lake City. Nicholas Ransohoff was a member of Utah’s first Masonic Lodge, a fraternal order, founded at Camp Floyd. He lent Brigham Young $30,000 to buy the camp’s entire pork supply when the U. S. Army left in 1864. He was one of the earliest Jews to freight goods across the Plains from the East, a founder of Utah’s first Jewish synagogue, Congregation B’nai Israel, and of the Liberal Party. On Main Street in 1864, Jewish owned-businesses included Ransohoff Brothers, Siegel and Company, and Bodenburg and Kahn. At their height, the Ransohoff brothers had stores in Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Corinne.
Bohemian-born Charles Popper is listed on the 1860 Placer, California Census as having $200. In contrast, the 1870 Salt Lake City Census shows Popper, a butcher, now married and with two servants, with assets of $30,000. That equals $478,000 in 2006 dollars. In 1865, Popper organized Utah Lodge #1, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization. Popper’s name lives on in Popperton Park, located where his animal stockyards once stood. Popper was Utah’s first Jewish rancher, with vast holdings on the Utah-Colorado border. Popper supplied beef to the Federal troops stationed in Utah, at 9 ¾ cents a pound. When he closed his shop on the High Holy Days, the Mormon butchers closed their butcher shops out of respect for Popper. He reciprocated by closing his shop on Pioneer Day. An 1879 article in American Israelite, a Jewish newspaper, cited Popper as the most influential Jew in Utah Territory. At that time, the Jewish community numbered thirty families, according to this article. However, Rabbi Max Lilienthal wrote in 1876 that he met forty Jewish families in Salt Lake City.
On the 150 acres of land he squatted on outside the city, Popper built a slaughterhouse and a soap and candle factory. The general in charge of the newly established
Camp Douglas appropriated Popper’s land, but the butcher legally fought back. He lost two rounds in the general lands office and his appeal to the Secretary of the Interior. But Popper persevered. It helped that he discovered and developed a mine in Idaho that paid him $60,000 a month. He moved his family to Washington, D.C. and then laid siege on Congress for eleven years. Finally, through a special Congressional act, Popper regained title to the land.
The 1870 Census shows Polish-born Louis Cohn, 29, a retail merchant, owning a home worth $18,000. Bavarian-born Sol Seigel, only 20, retail clothing merchant, owns an estate of $15,000. What opportunities for a shadken! Louis Cohn was elected to the city council in 1874 and re-elected in 1882; he also served as fire and police commissioner. He was a member of the Alta Club, a businessmen’s social club still active today, and an active Mason. Louis and his brother Alexander Cohn organized their firm in 1867. Alexander Cohn was elected President of Congregation B’nai Israel in 1896. He and his brother married sisters; Louis married Carrie Lippman and Alexander wed Jennie Lippman.
Another set of Prussian-born brothers, the Watters, jewelers, went first to California and then two of the three siblings moved to Utah, Ichel and Abraham. Active Masons, the two Watters also joined the Odd Fellows Lodge, the fraternal organization branch established by Charles Popper. Other Odd Fellows were Fred and Theodore Auerbach, James M. Ellis. Nelson Boukofsky, Simon Bamberger, Henry Cohn, Louis Hyams, Samuel Levy, M. Meyers, Elias Siegel, and Moss Wolf. Ichel was treasurer and then grand master of the lodge.
Ichel Watters served as the treasurer of the Hebrew Benevolent Society, established in 1866; his wife Augusta served as President of the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society. Ichel was a charter member of B’nai Israel, and often led services there with Moses Caspar Phillips, another early settler, who, like Ichel, went to California first. The current Democratic Salt Lake City mayoral candidate, Ralph Becker, is a descendant of Ichel Watters. Abraham Watters divided his time between California (where he was actively involved in the Jewish community) and Salt Lake City; for a time, he also lived in England, but the last part of his life was spent in Utah.
The 1880 Census lists Ichel and his family in Salt Lake City; Ichel’s profession is stockbroker. His son Leon later became a celebrated scientist, professor, and writer of Jewish history and was a close friend of Albert Einstein. Leon developed sterile catgut as a suture material to close wounds, designed portable disinfectants for the U.S. Armed Forces in World War I, set up a lab for atomic research at Cal Tech in 1934, designed a mobile hospital unit of trucks for use by the British in North Africa in World War II, and endowed a chemistry prize at his alma mater, the University of Utah, which is still awarded. He wrote The Pioneer Jews of Utah.
Julius Gerson and Fanny Brooks are reported to be the first Jewish family to settle in Utah, arriving first in 1854, but settling down permanently in 1857. From Silesia, and originally named Bruck, the family took in boarders, owned a millinery shop, and bought real estate. Eveline Brooks Auerbach, their daughter, built the Brooks Arcade, a stately building downtown, on land purchased by her father. Eveline married Samuel Auerbach.
Louis Hyams, who later served as Salt Lake City recorder, organized Yom Kippur services in 1875 and was married to a daughter of Moses C. Phillips.
The Siegel brothers, born in Bavaria, had two clothing stores in Salt Lake by 1866. Before that they had followed the railroad west, selling goods in the Dakotas and Montana Territory. Henry, the eldest, was an incorporator of Congregation B’nai Israel (1891) and its first president. An 1896 article in the Salt Lake Tribune mentions Henry Siegel, a well-known clothier, being the original locator of the Mercur Mine in 1871, who worked it for the mercury in its ore. His brother Joseph was one of four signers of a January 1866 appeal circulated in the eastern states, asking for assistance in establishing a Jewish cemetery in Salt Lake City. This was published in Occident, another Jewish newspaper. Newspapers such as The Hebrew, Sabbath Visitor, Occident, and American Israelite were popular with American Jews seeking news relevant to them. The Jewish press contained international and domestic news, local news, serialized stories, announcements of deaths, weddings, and births, and advertising. The 1870 Census lists Solomon Seigel, a mine executive, wife Ray and son, both born in Maryland, and Joseph Seigel, husband, a merchandising executive, also with a wife Ray, born in Maryland, and Utah-born son.
Still another set of brothers, Samuel and Emanuel Kahn, settled in Salt Lake City. A third brother, Louis, remained in Philadelphia. Samuel, in 1860, became a partner in N.S. Ransohoff and Co. In 1863, he joined George Bodenberg in a grocery distribution firm that became a leading outfit in Utah, Idaho, and Montana. In 1867, the partnership dissolved and he joined business forces with his brother. Samuel Kahn was known as Colonel Kahn (pronounced Kane), because he was appointed to the Governor’s staff. Kahn was a financial backer of Peep o’Day, a magazine of science, literature, and art, perhaps the first magazine published west of the Missouri. He was active in civic affairs and an early supporter of Congregation B’nai Israel. The Samuel Kahn home on South Main Street was a center of social activity. The American Israelite, on February 20, 1885, published a long resolution of condolence on the death of Samuel Kahn, from the Jewish Synagogue of Salt Lake. Emanuel Kahn served as trustee and officer of Congregation B’nai Israel. He and his brother married two sisters; Samuel married Sarah Cohen and Emanuel married her sister Fanny, both daughters of Briner Cohen, who was an early partner in a Salt Lake hotel with Simon Bamberger, who was later a Utah governor.
The Simon brothers were early settlers and entrepreneurs in Utah. Fred, Louis, Joseph, and Adolph Simon were active in civic and religious affairs and leading manufacturers and wholesalers of millinery. Louis and Adolph established the fabulous Paris millinery store. Joseph kept a wholesale dry goods business.
The Ellis brothers also settled in the city and were active in civic and religious affairs. They advertised dry goods in the Union Vedette in 1864; the Union Vedette was the newspaper of Camp Floyd. James M. Ellis was a charter member of the Masonic Order and President of the Odd Fellows, both established in 1865. Nathan Ellis in 1866 was listed in a Telegraph article as President of the Salt Lake City Israelites. In December 1866, a petition of Jewish and other Gentile merchants to LDS leaders was signed by Ellis Bros. by J. M. Ellis. Other Jewish signatures were Bodenburg and Kahn, C. Prag of Ransohoff and Company, Siegel Brothers, L. Cohn and Company, Glucksman and Cohn, Morris Elgutter, F. Auerbach and Brothers, S. Lesser and Brothers, and I. Watters.
The 1880 Census lists Jacob E. Bamberger, in mining, born in Hesse Durmstadt, wife Bertha, born in Pennsylvania to parents born in Baden, their Utah-born children, and Jacob’s brothers, Simon, in mining, and Louis E., a merchant/clothier. Simon later built railroads, public transportation, and the Lagoon Amusement Park. He served as a state senator and in 1916 was elected Governor of Utah. The Lagoon Amusement Park still operates, although the Bamberger family no longer owns it. Jacob owned the Daly Mine, which his son Ernest later managed.
Enumerated in the 1880 Census are Fannie Symons, three sons, and grandson Heinbach Cohen, N.S. Ransohoff, liquor dealer, wife Aurelia, and three Pennsylvania-born sons,
Nelson Boukofsky, liquor dealer born in Prussia, his Missouri-born wife, two children, born in Utah and California, and Nelson’s brother Mike, a merchant. Nelson, a dry goods merchant, and his family, in 1900, were living in Salt Lake. By 1910 they were in New York City, where they lived with his in-laws, Julius and Regina Maas/Mass. Leopold Ransohoff, in 1900, is a partner, secretary, and treasurer in a lace house in Salt Lake.
The 1880 Census also lists Russian-born merchant Louis Reggel, his Prussian-born wife Rachel, son Samuel, born in England, nephew Gus Jacobs, born in California to Prussian-born parents, and an English servant. The Corinne Daily Record in 1871 has ads for L. Reggel’s on Montana Street, selling clothing, fancy dry goods, boots and shoes, and general merchandise. Reggel’s was one of only two Gentile firms purchased for incorporation into Mormon ZCMI; the other was Ransohoff. And Reggel’s Row, built in 1872 on Third South, was the first multi-family house in Salt Lake City.
In the 1900 Census, Louis Reggel is naturalized, the proprietor of a gambling house, living with his wife, a servant, and a lodger. Rachel has borne two children, one surviving. One son, Albert, died of lung disease in 1880. Interestingly, Salt Lake County filed charges against Louis Reggel in 1869 for selling obscene pictures and for gambling in an 1891 criminal case. Moreover, he was wanted in Pennsylvania for obtaining goods under false pretenses. When a federal marshal came to Utah to collect Reggel, he allowed Louis time for “amusement” before they headed east. Both the marshal and Reggel were arrested for gambling! The Reggels, by 1910, had moved to Los Angeles, a city more tolerant of their lifestyle. Reggel had been a trustee and charter member of Congregation B’nai Israel and a trustee of the Hebrew Benevolent Association.
Prussian-born Isador Morris, a grocer, his English-born wife Annie, and their four children, lived in Salt Lake. Annie converted from Mormonism to the Jewish faith. The 1867 Pacific Coast Directory lists Isador, a Civil War pensioner, as a grocer and provisioner in Great Salt Lake City. The 1890 Utah Directory lists him in mining; he contributed gold dust to help raise funds to build an orthodox synagogue, Congregation Montefiore, Salt Lake City’s second synagogue. Because Morris, a lawyer, helped to free convicted polygamists, he was loved by the Mormon Church, whose leaders donated money for the construction of Montefiore. Isador’s partner and cousin, Aaron Morris, was murdered in a botched robbery attempt in Idaho, at age 31.
Posen-born Morris H. Lipman, a merchant, lives in 1890 with his New York-born wife and a servant. Lipman, Jacob E. Bamberger, and Fred Auerbach were members of the 1887 Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce.
A prominent brewer was Jacob Moritz of the Salt Lake Brewing Company, who came to Utah about 1870 and was President of Congregation B’nai Israel in 1905. Moritz greatly expanded the beer company. He realized that, “Salt Lake City was an up and coming commercial center of the intermountain west, an ideal place to establish a brewery from which to supply the rapidly growing population with a good wholesome beverage in the form of beer.” Ads for the company noted that the beer contained less alcohol than apple cider. In 1886, the firm employed 35 men and produced 20,000 barrels of beer. By 1903, the company produced 125,000 barrels annually. And by 1908, it employed more than one hundred and sold beer from California to Nebraska. In 1908, the Salt Lake Brewing Company produced 41,250,000 bottles of beer! (There are 330 bottles in a barrel.) Additionally, Moritz bought up a large tract of land downtown to develop a new business district. After he died, his estate was appraised in 1910 at $327,000. In 2006 purchasing dollars, this would be more than $7 million.
Baer Brothers Mercantile, wholesale liquor distributors, started in Leadville, Colorado but moved to Salt Lake City. The Baer Brothers, Isaac and Adolph, originally from Baden, Germany, were founding members of B’nai Brith in Leadville. Isaac became President of the Hebrew Benevolent Association in Leadville and helped build Temple Israel. Adolph, his wife Mathilda, and their children moved to Salt Lake City in the early 1900s. Minette Baer married Daniel Alexander, a prominent attorney in Salt Lake.
Alexander Stiefel, a drayman, born in Germany, was a founding member of Congregation B’nai Israel in 1881. At the synagogue’s first service in March 1883, Ichel Watters and Moses C. Phillips officiated and Alexander Stiefel blew the shofar as he did in subsequent years. He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. When he died in 1904, the Deseret News ran a front page story on him. The article said he didn’t feel well. His wife suggested he sit down and eat a plate of soup. Sounds like a typical Jewish wife. He collapsed before he got the spoon to his mouth. He left four sons, three of whom lived in Salt Lake.
Photos courtesy of University of Utah Marriott Library Special Collection or the Utah State Historical Society.