Weppners.org

Generation II · Son of Augustus Weppner

Jacob Weppner

29 Oct 1820 – 8 Jan 1902

Facts

Born
29 Oct 1820, Zell, Rhine-Bavaria
Died
8 Jan 1902, Buffalo, New York
Work
Worked in his father's meat business until 1849; managed the Born brewery 1849–1865; later a maltster

Their story

Came to Buffalo with his parents in 1834, not quite fourteen, and worked for his father in the meat business until 1849. That January his cousin and brother-in-law Philip Born died, and Jacob took over the management of Born's brewery on Genesee Street for his widowed sister, Anna Maria. For a time it was known as the Born-Weppner Brewery. He ran it until 1865, when it passed to Gerhard Lang, the husband of his niece Barbara Born, and it grew into the Gerhard Lang Brewery. On 1 September 1848 he married Emma Lambert at St. Louis Church. After about ten years of retirement he went back to work as a maltster and kept at it until two years before his death on 8 January 1902. He was a Democrat who never held office, and a trustee of St. Louis Church, “one of its most devoted and consistent members.” No children of Jacob and Emma are recorded. A 1906 county history called him “an excellent man and representative German-American citizen.” An 1898 history lists him among the trustees of a Buffalo savings bank, and in 1900 he lived at 983 Jefferson Avenue. He had lived in Buffalo for nearly 68 years.

WikiTree gives his birth date as 29 September 1820; the 1906 county history gives 29 October.

Their lifetime

  1. 1820Jacob Weppner is born in Zell, Rhine-Bavaria, on 29 October.
  2. 1825The Erie Canal opens, with Buffalo as its western terminus. Buffalo
  3. 1829St. Louis Church is founded for the city's French, German and Irish Catholics. Buffalo
  4. 1832Buffalo is chartered as a city; cholera kills more than 120 people by July. Buffalo
  5. 1834The Weppners sail from Le Havre on the François I, land at New York on 23 August and reach Buffalo on 18 September.
  6. 1834Cholera returns to a city of nearly 15,000, and people who can afford to leave do. Buffalo
  7. 1837Der Weltbürger, Buffalo's first German-language newspaper, begins publishing. Buffalo
  8. 1842A treaty gives up the Seneca's Buffalo Creek Reservation, which bordered the city. Buffalo
  9. 1845The Elk Street Market opens; butchers come to fill most of its stalls. Buffalo
  10. 1848Jacob marries Emma Lambert at St. Louis Church on 1 September.
  11. 1849Philip Born dies on 26 January, and Jacob leaves his father's meat business to run Born's brewery for his widowed sister.
  12. 1855Nearly half of Buffalo's 74,000 residents are German-speaking. Buffalo
  13. 1859German and French Catholics open the United German & French Cemetery. Buffalo
  14. 1865Jacob Weppner hands the Born brewery on to Gerhard Lang, the husband of Philip Born's daughter Barbara.
  15. 1870German Jesuits found Canisius College. Buffalo
  16. 1896The Ellicott Square Building opens, the largest office building in the world at the time. Buffalo
  17. 1901The Pan-American Exposition; President McKinley is shot at the Temple of Music. Buffalo
  18. 1902Jacob Weppner dies on 8 January after nearly 68 years in Buffalo.