Schwabacher Brothers

The three Schwabacher brothers, natives of Zirndorf, Bavaria, came to the United States in the mid-19th century. The first to cross over was Louis Schwabacher, who came over with the help of his mother’s brother, Isaac Bloch of San Francisco. Louis engaged in business several places in the Southern United States and settled for a time in Mississippi. In 1858 he relocated to San Francisco. Around that time, his brothers joined him. When the main focus of the brothers' business shifted to the Pacific Northwest, Abraham Schwabacher stayed behind at the brothers' San Francisco headquarters. He married his first cousin, Sara Lehrberger Schwabacher. One Schwabacher enterprise in California was the Stockton Milling Company (Stockton, California), of which Sigmund Schwabacher was president. ==Walla Walla==

After ventures in San Francisco and in The Dalles, Oregon (where Sigmund worked for a relative with the surname Black, probably originally Bloch (independent until it was merged into Seattle First National Bank in 1947),) The Schwabacher company also operated two grist mills in Walla Walla. The Shwabachers' 1876 building in Walla Walla was described in a 19th-century account as: …the finest building north of San Francisco, its front resplendent with massive iron columns and arches; its seven entrances each with double doors, the outer ones being iron, the inner cedar…. The interior was 16 feet high, painted white. Its six iron pillars were painted and gilded. In the northwest corner, there was a glass space of 12x16 elevated with a fireplace where Mr. Sigmund Schwabacher could observe and direct the activities. In 1909, H.A. Gardner, J.M. Fitzgerald, and others bought the store, which survived until 1980 as Gardner's Department Store. ==Boise==

The Schwabachers also had a branch store in Boise, Idaho. ==Seattle==

The three Schwabacher brothers' only sister, Bobette (Babette) Schwabacher (January 3, 1836 – January 7, 1908), married the brothers' business associate Bailey Gatzert in 1861. Schwabacher Bros. & Company became Seattle's first wholesaler, with a business opened October 11, 1869. Under Gatzert's direction, the company also constructed a warehouse, The store established in-house brands "Colonial" and "Old Faithful." Schwabacher's Wharf was also the terminus for Seattle's first shipping trade route to the Orient, connecting to the Great Northern Railway. Upon Sigmund's death in 1900, he was succeeded at Schwabacher Hardware by his son Leopold (Leo) S. Schwabacher (December 26, 1871 – April 6, 1930). Three years later, Leo married Edna Blum of San Francisco; they settled in Seattle. Another fire hit the Schwabacher Hardware Company on February 11, 1905, leading to the construction of a new and even larger store at First Avenue South and South Jackson Street. and then in 1901 by Nathan Eckstein, However, the Schwabacher business dynasty ended with Morton Schwabacher's death in 1977. Gatzert was also a Seattle City Council member and mayor, as well as longtime Seattle Chamber of Commerce head. Gatzert's wife, the former Babette Schwabacher, co-founded Seattle's first charity, the Ladies Relief Society (now Seattle Children's Home), Morton Schwabacher was a longtime board member of Temple De Hirsch, vice president of the ecumenical Camp Brotherhood, and president of the Council on Aging. In addition, Jacob Furth, who had come to Seattle under the influence of the Gatzerts, and whose business interests were intertwined with theirs, played a major role on many fronts in the city's development. In 1919 the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote of the firm on its 50th anniversary: The history of Schwabacher is interwoven with the history of Seattle, not alone in that the firm and the city have progressed in the respective enterprises of business and community development, but in the more intimate relations between the men of the Schwabacher concern and their fellow citizens. True public spirit has never been more constantly exemplified than by all of these, from Mr. Gatzert, the pioneer, to Nathan Eckstein, the present able head of the firm, always attended by generous contribution of time, service and money to every civic need. Seattle and the house of Schwabacher are fond and justly proud of each other—not a doubt of that. Schwabacher Bros. & Company was eventually renamed Pacific Coast Wholesale Grocery and later as Pacific Marine Schwabacher, Inc., which operated in eight western states. According to the Seattle Times in 1976, it was at that time the Pacific Northwest's largest wholesaler of hard goods. Gatzert-Schwabacher Land Company The Gatzert-Schwabacher Land Company primarily owned land in Seattle, but also had investments in Anacortes, Washington, and in Skagit, as well as Pierce and Jefferson Counties. ==Schwabacher genealogy==

With numerous cousin marriages and multiple recurring forenames, the Schwabacher family genealogy can be confusing. In particularly, there were numerous intermarriages with the Bloch family. The parents of Babette, Louis, Abraham, Sigmund Schwabacher were Loeb Schwabacher (c. 1800 – May 23, 1846) and Mina née Bloch (October 10, 1805 – May 11, 1843). They lived and died in Bavaria. Mina's parents were Feischel Bloch and Sarah née Floss. Mina's sisters Henrietta (Jetta) and Sophie successively married Samuel Lehrberger; Sophie and Samuel Lehrberger's daughter Sarah married Abraham Schwabacher. Mina's brother Isaac Bloch had a granddaughter Emilie, who married Morton Schwabacher. Babette Schwabacher and Bailey Gatzert had no children. Louis Schwabacher and Belle (or Bella), née Blum, had two daughters, Mina Louise and Jacie. Abraham Schwabacher and Sarah née Lehrberger had five children. Their children were Louis A., Jennie, Frederick, Sophie, and Mina Alice (who married Nathan Eckstein). The Ecksteins had two daughters: Johanna—a noted Seattle philanthropist and patron of the arts, who never married—and Babette, who married twice and had four children. Sigmund Schwabacher and his wife Rosa Schwabacher (an Albany, New York-born relative, although the exact relationship is unclear) had seven children; of these, only their eldest son Leo (and, in turn, his son Morton) figures in the business dynasty in the Pacific Northwest. Sigmund and Rosa Schwabacher's other children were Max, Mina, Lester (who died in infancy), Stella, Franklin (Frank), and Helen Rita. Stella, Frank, and Helen left further descendants. ==Gallery==

File:Schwabachers first Seattle store.jpg|Schwabachers' 1872 Seattle store, circa 1884. This store burned in the Great Seattle Fire. File:Seattle - Schwabacher Hardware interior - 1900.jpg|Interior, Schwabacher Hardware, 1900. File:Seattle and the Orient p144.jpg|Key Seattle Schwabacher personnel, 1900. Top: Sig Schwabacher. Middle (left-to-right): Sigismund Aronson, James S. Goldsmith, George Boole. Bottom: Nathan Eckstein. File:Seattle - 91 Yesler Way.jpg|The Yesler Way side of the store at First and Yesler, 2007. ==Notes==