Introduction: The First Jewish Families in the Upper Miami Valley
Situated between two homes along Caldwell Street in Piqua is Congregation Anshe Emeth, the center of Ohio’s fourth-oldest organized Jewish community. While the current tan two-story brick building housing Anshe Emeth dates to 1922, the group was organized over sixty years prior on March 7, 1858. For over 150 years, Jews have been represented among the religious communities of the Upper Miami Valley. The story of Jewish life in the area, however, does not begin with the creation of Anshe Emeth. Rather, Jews are known to have lived in Piqua and Troy since the 1840s and it is likely that Jews were among the itinerant traders passing through the area during the 1830s. Jews and other ethnic and religious groups came to Miami County in increased numbers after the Miami & Erie Canal was extended north of Dayton in 1837. This canal connected Miami County to Cincinnati, Ohio’s largest city during the 1800s, and enabled business people from the city and others living along the Ohio River to quickly reach Miami and surrounding counties. Cincinnati at the time was also home to Ohio’s largest Jewish community and its oldest Jewish institutions. Most, if not all, of Miami County's earliest Jewish residents spent time in Cincinnati before moving north.
Emma and Moses Friedlich are the first Jewish family known to have lived in Piqua. The couple arrived in town in 1849 when Piqua’s population was around 3,200. Emma and Moses were, like many American Jews at the time, immigrants from Bavaria; they were married in 1841 after their arrival in the United States. After settling in Piqua, Moses opened a clothing store on Main Street, which he managed until his retirement in 1891. He also was involved in the creation of Citizens National Bank in 1865 and served as a director and vice president of the bank from 1870 until his death in 1892. Emma and Moses raised at least three children, Caroline, Jacob, and Tillie. The husband and wife were not the first members of the Friedlich family to reside in Piqua. In 1846 Moses’ brother, Aaron arrived in town and found work as a tailor. Around 1850 Aaron married Theresa and the couple had ten children, five sons, and five daughters. These children would eventually move to various places, including Bowling Green, Cleveland, Iowa, Rochester, and Wapakoneta. Aaron and Theresa, however, lived in Piqua for the remainder of their lives and they made several contributions to their adopted city. Most notably, Aaron served for a number of years as a member of the local Board of Education and was president of Piqua’s Social Club. Emma, Moses, Aaron and Theresa are all commemorated on the stained glass windows found in Anshe Emeth today.
Eight miles south of Piqua in Troy, a Jewish presence was also growing by the 1840s. Levi and Nancy Barnett along with Jenny and Joseph Wertheimer are the first Jews known to have lived in town. Both couples arrived in the 1840s and both Levi and Joseph supported their families by selling clothing. During the mid to late 1800s, the clothing business, which was rapidly growing due to technological advances in sewing, represented a major economic area for recent immigrants. Jews in America, who were primarily born in Central Europe or second-generation Americans, were particularly likely to become involved in the clothing business because of anti-immigrant or anti-Jewish sentiment in other trades and a tradition in many families of operating small businesses in Europe. Family connections also allowed many newer immigrants to enter the clothing business. As an example, it was not uncommon for a brother to emigrate to the United States and send money back to pay for the voyage of his other siblings after establishing a stable business. These siblings would work for their brother upon arriving in America and sometimes go on to create their own stores in new towns.
In Troy as in Piqua, Jews involved themselves in communal activities. Levi was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization, and one of the Barnett children, Jacob, would become a member of the local Elks lodge. Organizations such as the Elks and Odd Fellows filled an important need within 19th-century communities. In an era before Social Security and other social welfare programs, communal societies such as these served not only social purposes, but also as a type of insurance providing medical care and disability benefits for members. Fraternal societies would also provide funds to cover at least some of the burial costs for members and they helped to support any orphans left behind by the deceased. Some Jews also affiliated themselves with religious and social institutions in larger cities to maintain connections with the wider Jewish community. The oldest Jewish organization in the Miami Valley, Temple Israel traces its origins to 1850 when twelve Jews gathered in Dayton to form a Hebrew Society. This Society was dedicated to organizing religious services and creating a set burial ground for Jews. The Society’s early members included individuals in the Friedlich family. In 1852 Gelinde Friedlich was buried at the Rubicon Cemetery in Dayton, which had been organized by Society members as the region’s first Jewish cemetery in 1851. At the time of her death, Gelinde was just seven years old. Jews in Piqua, Greenville, Sidney, and Troy also traveled to larger cities to maintain social ties with other Jews. The foremost Jewish fraternal organization was known as B’nai B’rith and in 1864 a lodge was formed in Dayton. Known as the Eschol Lodge, the organization is the ancestor of the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, which continues to exist in Dayton into the 21st century. Over the years, many Jews from Darke, Miami and Shelby counties would affiliate themselves as members of the lodge. Not until 1944 would a B’nai B’rith lodge be formed in the Upper Miami Valley.
During the 1850s, more Jews arrived in Piqua and Troy. These included Henry Flesh, Herz Landauer, Abraham Lebensburger, Charles Lebolt and Esther Lebolt, David and Regina Louis, Barbara Schwab, and Abraham and Fannie Wendel. It is also during this same decade that the first Jewish residents of Greenville were recorded. These residents included Charles and Julia Bachman, Henrietta and Simon Bachman, Moses Huhn, and Joseph Oppenheimer. Henry Flesh, who was born in Ellingen, Bavaria, immigrated to the United States in 1852 at the age of 15 or 16. In 1856 he moved to Troy from Dayton and in 1858 he relocated to Piqua. Once in Piqua, Henry found work with Aaron Friedlich selling clothing. He remained with Aaron until 1862 when he decided to go into business for himself. Henry’s business and civic interests expanded and by the 1880s he was among Piqua’s most notable citizens. More on this will be written later. Hertz Landauer and Abraham Wendel came to Piqua as peddlers. Hertz met Barbara Schwab after settling in Piqua and the two married but did not have any children. Barbara may have been related to Solomon Schwab, who is listed in The Israelite, a Jewish newspaper out of Cincinnati, as a Piqua resident and the fiancé of Bertha Hessberg of Cincinnati in 1861. No other records of Solomon’s time in Piqua were located. More information, however, exists regarding Abraham Wendel.
Abraham was born in Prussia in 1821 and came to the United States in 1848. By 1852 he made his way to Piqua where he met Fannie Friedlich, the sister of Aaron and Moses. The couple wed shortly after and seven children were born from the union. In 1856 Abraham saved enough money to put aside the peddler’s pack and open a jewelry store on Main Street. One son, Jacob remained in Piqua as an adult to carry on the business. Another child of Abraham and Fannie died in infancy and, Samuel, the youngest son died at the age of 22. All four of the Wendel daughters moved out of Piqua after their marriages. Bertha and Sadie moved to Portland, Oregon, while Helen and Rose married men living in Cincinnati. Helen moved to Greenville with her husband, Abraham Simon by 1900. Abraham would become a notable cattle and wool merchant in Darke County. Both Abraham and Fannie are commemorated on the stained glass windows of Anshe Emeth.
Abraham Lebensburger, Charles Lebolt, and David Louis all owned businesses in Piqua by 1860. Abraham was involved in the local clothing trade from 1858 until 1883, when he moved to Chicago with his wife, Caroline. Abraham was also the brother-in-law of both Charles and David. Charles married Esther Lebensburger in 1854, three years after his arrival in Piqua. At the time, Esther lived in Dayton. Interestingly, Charles and Esther had grown up only a few miles from each other in Bavaria and they reunited after immigrating to the United States. The husband and wife were married for over 50 years and they had ten children. These children would mostly move to either Springfield, Missouri or Springfield, Ohio. David married Regina Lebensburger in the late 1850s and the couple had at least four children. In addition to sharing family ties, both Charles and David were involved in the grocery business. The two men also shared similar community activities as members of B’nai B’rith, United Ancient Order of Druids and Odd Fellows.
Greenville’s earliest Jewish residents shared many traits with their coreligionists in Piqua and Troy. The Bachmans, Moses Huhn, and Joseph Oppenheimer were all immigrants from German-speaking regions of Europe and all spent at least some time in the clothing business once in Greenville. It is of note that the presence of German-Jewish immigrants in the Upper Miami Valley by the mid-19th century was part of a larger national pattern. Between the years 1820 and 1880, an estimated 150,000 Jews would arrive in the United States from predominantly German-speaking regions of Europe. Jews, however, comprised but a small part of the approximately three million German-speaking immigrants in total who came to the United States during the same period. Most German-speaking lands would become part of the modern German state when it was created in 1871. During the decades preceding this event, however, much of Central Europe was beset by revolutions and other forms of political and economic turmoil. In 1848, revolutions became especially widespread throughout Europe ushering in an exceptionally large wave of immigration. Central European Jews, who were often subjected to violence and discriminatory laws that limited their economic opportunities and ability to marry, faced additional incentives to emigrate.
Some German-Jewish immigrants to the United States became wealthy. One such immigrant was Simon Bachman. By the time of his death in 1907, Simon achieved success in business through his clothing store on Broadway Street. For a number of years, Simon also operated a saloon on East Main Street named the Lion Garden. This business took its name from the Lion Brewery in Cincinnati. Simon’s life, however, had its sorrows. Of the 12 children born to Simon and Henrietta, only four were living when Simon died. Henrietta Rosenbush married Simon in 1854, and the couple remained together for over 50 years. At the time of Henrietta’s death in 1912, she was one of Greenville’s oldest residents having reached the age of 82. The Greenville Democrat referred to Henrietta as a “pioneer lady” in her obituary and remarked, “being exemplary Jews never interfered with the [Bachman] family mingling with all other denominational people." While intended as a laudatory statement, the paper’s comment also reveals a certain bias that viewed many Jews as holding themselves at a distance from the larger community due to their faith. This belief was not reflected in Greenville or the hundreds of other cities and towns in which American Jews lived by the early 20th century.
Charles Bachman, who was likely a brother of Simon, founded the Bachman's Boss Clothing House on Broadway in 1859. For a time he also owned a store named the Elephant Clothing Company. He and his wife, Julia had at least four children. Joseph Oppenheimer lived in Greenville by 1852 and he operated the California Clothing Store on Broadway. In 1853 the Oppenheimer store was renamed the People’s Clothing Store and it operated under this name until at least 1859. It is also of note that Joseph, along with dozens of other locals, helped to finance the construction of the Greenville Palestine turnpike in 1856. By 1866, Joseph sold his clothing store to Moses Huhn. Moses lived in Greenville since 1858 and his first job in town was working at F. & J. Waring's dry goods store. Moses was also active in the community as treasurer of the Volunteer Fire Company and as a member of the Masons and Odd Fellows. It does not appear that Moses ever married. Following his death in 1897, Morris, a nephew of Moses, took over the clothing business. The example of People’s Clothing Store demonstrates how some Jewish-owned businesses were passed along to other Jews, who could be either relatives or connections from the wider Jewish community, by older owners. Other businesses would follow similar paths in later years.