Three Bavarian Brothers
In 1853, brothers Solomon, Marcus and Samuel Bear emigrated from Bavaria to Wilmington, North Carolina and soon immersed themselves in the growing German and Jewish population there.
Bavaria was the part of Germany where the largest number of Wilmington’s adult German immigrants hailed from by 1860. In contrast, German emigrants to Texas came mostly from the states of Hannover, Hesse and Nassau.
Wilmington’s German-Jewish immigrants were mostly self-employed merchants who most often began as clerks in Jewish-owned stores. In 1860, twelve of the eighteen clothing stores in town were Jewish-owned. Business success followed Solomon Bear’s “Sol. Bear & Brothers” wholesale and retail clothing at 20 Market Street which included hats, boots, caps, fancy dry goods as well as wine and liquor.
An earlier Jewish immigrant to the city, Menasse Kahnweiler, involved himself in road construction, raising sheep, and real estate. In 1811 the upper floor of his building was a small synagogue for local Jews to worship. More German Jews arrived here and established such organizations as the Germania Lodge of the Knights of the Pythias, and the Schutzenverein Rifle, which evolved into the German Volunteers (German Light Infantry) led by Hanover-born Capt. Christian Cornehlson. That German immigrants in general were abolitionist-minded is inaccurate – the latter were revolutionists who fled Germany after the abortive democratic uprisings of 1848.
As was common in the American South in that era, Jewish merchants held black laborers with five at the Kahnweiler establishment in 1860 and owned by the company itself. Historian Jonathan Sarna tells us that “as a rule those Southern Jews who could afford slaves did so.” At the same time in Charlotte, North Carolina, three German-born, Jewish dry goods merchants owned slaves.
By 1858 Wilmington had developed a considerable German population which began a drive to build a place of worship in the city – soon to be known as St. Paul’s Lutheran when completed in that year with pastor Rev. John H. Mengert, D.D. The German Jewish population also sought a place of worship, though not realized until after the war.
Solomon Bear was already involved with Wilmington’s German Volunteers when war came, which became Company A of the Eighteenth North Carolina Regiment on June 15, first serving as a hospital steward. Other German-born Hanoverians in the Volunteers were lieutenants Ackerman, Runge, Schulken and Vollers – and enlisted men with surnames such as Bachman, Henry Bear, Brahmer, Buckner, Dienstbach, Domler, Eigenbruner, Geier, Goldenschmidt, Gunther, Heins, Hoener, Jacoby, Katz, Klein, Koch, Koppel, Kordlander, Kornahreas, Kuhl, Kyhl, Linsbrink, Luhrs, Mauss, Ortman, Overbeck, Pfundt, Portwig, Rosenthal, Schlobohmm, Schoeber, Scwartz, Solomon, Steiniger, Stolter, Teller, Theis, Ulbrich, Von Glahn, Voss, Wagner, Weil and Westerman. Jacob Blumenthal and Henry Wertheimer were among those who did not return home after the war.
As was common in the South, those with merchant and trading backgrounds were sent to Europe as purchasing agents for the Confederacy and Bear was no doubt charged with obtaining medical supplies to run through the blockade. The Kahnweiler store offered many European luxuries such as millinery, shoes and thread brought through the blockade. Nephew Simon Kahnweiler was a Southern agent in Europe and through his father in Philadelphia arranged for ships to run the blockade to Wilmington.
After the war Solomon returned home and became a driving force in the construction of the Temple of Isael at Fourth and Market Streets. A poignant photograph exists of the grey-clad veteran Solomon Bear on horseback on January 19, 1900 – Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Birthday.
(Jews at the Cape Fear Coast. Anton Heike, Southern Jewish History, 2010; Solomon Bear. Wilmington Past, Present and Future. 1883)