Today is the birthday of Jacob Friedrich Kuhn (May 6, 1830-April 15, 1915). He was born in Eschelbach, Germany, but when he was fourteen, in 1845, he emigrated with his family to the U.S., settling in Buffalo, New York. Most of his life, at least until age 40, he worked as a tax assessor. But one of the businesses he was assigned to assess was a brewery, the Messner & Shamel Brewery owned by Anthony Messner and Michael Schamel. But Messner was leaving the brewery and so they were in need of a new partner, so at the age of 40, in 1870, Kuhn bought into what they now called the Shamel & Kuhn Brewery, at least until 1874, when Schamel departed and now it was called simply the Jacob F. Kuhn Brewery.

But Kuhn had also been. very busy person when it came to his family. When he was 21, he married Elizabeth Rudolf and they reportedly had a staggering twenty-five children, some of whom came to work at his brewery and so by 1884 they name of the brewery changed again, this time to Jacob F. Kuhn & Sons, though how many sons is unknown. In 1891, the name was changed one last time, to the Gambrinus Brewing Co., which it remained until it closed for good in 1904. Eleven years later, Jacob Kohn passed at age 84.

And here’s his obituary from the Buffalo Time on April 16, 1915:

And here’s one more obituary, though it’s a little harder to read: