Isaac Wormser’s Heart was in San Francisco

 

Had he lived long enough, Isaac Wormser likely would have understood Tony Bennett’s singing “I left my heart in San Francisco.”  Shown here, the German immigrant liquor dealer led an unusually early peripatetic life until the “The City on the Bay” came to hold a special fascination for him.

Born in 1821 in the Aldingen, a small town in the then Kingdom of Wurttemberg, Germany, Isaac was the son of Abraham and Gedele Heyum Wormser.   He is said to have received a rigorous basic German education and later learned the trade of a cloth weaver.   Maturing during a period of warfare between Prussia and Austria in which his king unwisely sided with Austria, Isaac may have decided to emigrate to America as a way of avoiding military service. 

He arrived here in 1842, initially residing in New York City, his point of entry.  Displaying the restlessness that characterized much of his early his life, Isaac soon relocated to Harrodsberg, Kentucky.  Founded in 1774 as the first permanent settlement west of the Allegheny, this small city calls itself “The Birthplace of the West.” The youth’s employment is unknown but it was there he became a naturalized citizen.  Restless after four years in Harrodsberg, Isaac decamped to Chicago, occupation unknown, but my guess it was working in a mercantile establishment.

When California’s Gold Rush began, Isaac’s wanderlust struck again.  With his brother Lewis, newly arrived in New York, in 1850 Isaac headed west to Stockton, California.  The discovery of gold on the American River in January 1848, caused Stockton to transform from a small settlement to a thriving commercial center, supplying miners heading into the Sierra foothills. Issac opened a general store called Wormser & Brother.  It proved to be highly profitable.  Among its stock was liquor.

When the boom times ended in Stockton, Isaac decided that San Francisco was a more likely place for building on success. By this time a third brother, Simon, had joined them from Germany.  Together they established a wholesale liquor business called Wormser Brothers.  Their first location was at First and Battery Streets.  Again meeting with success, in 1866 the brothers listed among the richest residents of San Francisco.  in 1867 they built their own three story building with basement at the corner of California and Front Streets.  Wormser Brothers’ flagship whiskey, as shown below,  was “Golden Sheaf,” with a trademark showing a comely woman carrying a sheaf of grain.

Here the Wormser story gets complicated. One source claims that Isaac returned to Germany, married, stayed in Wurtemberg, and turned the business over to Simon.  That scenario seems in error.  Passport information indicates Isaac returned to Germany early in 1854.  About age 33 he married there, his bride Louise Leringer, a German woman 12 years his junior.  Isaac never gave up the presidency of the liquor house, however, and apparently returned with Louise to the U.S. a year later.  According to 1860 census data,  the couple’s first child, Amelia, was born in San Francisco in 1856.  That same census listed Isaac as a “wholesale dealer in wines and liquor” and indicated the family had two live-in servants.

Although the company was in business for only seven years, its bottles and flasks have attracted collector attention.  One writer commented:  “The Wormser Brothers produced some of the more desirable Western bottles while they were in business in San Francisco….The earliest glass container from the Wormser firm is the large whiskey flask horizontally embossed WORMSER BROS. SAN FRANCISCO…This Wormser  flask is considered very rare with possibly only 8 to 12 examples in private collections.” The bottle is shown above.  Two other company flasks are below:

Other notable bottles from Wormser Brothers are barrel shaped containers with an applied tapered top and a smooth base embossed WORMSER BROS. SAN FRANCISCO. They are believed to have been produced for a very short period, possibly only in 1869. This quart comes in various shades from light yellow to darker brown amber, as shown below.  It is believed that there are only between 25 to 30 Wormser Bros. barrels extant in collections. 

After only some seven years in business, Wormser Brothers Co. was sold to the firm of Braeg, Frank & Dallemand [See post on Albert Dallemand, Sept. 17, 2012.]  Later, Wormsers family members would re-enter the liquor trade in San Francisco as co-founders of the Golden Gate Distilling Company.  Listed in city directories from at least 1893 to 1904, this enterprise had two addresses, 207 Battery (1893-1901) and 160 New Montgomery (1902-1904).   Details about this business unfortunately are lacking. 

As Isaac grew in wealth, he and Louise increased the size of their family.  Genealogical sites suggest seven children, four boys and three girls.  In order to house this growing brood, in 1876 he commissioned the construction of a mansion home, located at 1834 California Street.  Of Italianate style the Isaac Wormser House is has been cited by the city as a “Designated Landmark” since 1973.   After Isaac’s death, the dwelling was sold but is still in use as a private residence.

After largely retiring from the liquor trade, Isaac turned to managing his investments and was listed in the 1880 federal census as a “capitalist.”  From a photo of him from that period, carrying a top hat and cane, he looks every inch the part.  He also was gaining a reputation in San Francisco as a philanthropist. 

Isaac and Louise were members of Congregation Emanuel whose Rabbi Cohn led a movement to establish the first organization in the Far Western U.S. to provide for Jewish orphans and indigent aged.  At a community meeting in July 1871, fifteen San Franciscans were elected to serve as a board of trustees for what became the Pacific Hebrew Orphan and Home Society.  Isaac was elected the first president and was instrumental through his leadership and money for the erection of the orphanage shown below.  Says one biographer:  “His later years were devoted almost entirely to charitable work.”  After his peripatetic youth, Isaac had given his heart to San Francisco.

While on a holiday at the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey, California, shown below, Isaac died suddenly in October, 1894.  He was 73 years old.  Because burials in San Francisco are banned, Isaac was buried in nearby Colma, California, at the Home of Peace Cemetery.  Louise would join him there in 1931.  Their joint monument is shown here.

Note:  This post was composed from a variety of Internet sources after seeing the bottles and flasks from the Wormser Brothers Company on the virtual museum of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors.  They in turn led me to the personage of Isaac Wormser, an immigrant whose early wanderings brought him eventually to San Francisco, where he clearly “left his heart.”

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