Early San Francisco
Around 250,000 immigrants from Central Europe moved to the U.S. in the mid-1800's. After the discovery of gold in 1848 on the American River, immigrants who were both Jewish and non-Jewish, headed for San Francisco.
Three options existed to get to San Francisco. Traveling cross-country in a covered wagon took six months. Sailing 13,000 miles around South American could take three to six months, with the drawbacks of seasickness and lack of fresh food and water. The shortest option was crossing the jungles of Panama if immigrants were brave enough to face forty days of alligators, mosquitoes, snakes, diseases, robberies, and a potentially long wait on the Pacific Ocean side for space on ships crammed with people heading north.
San Francisco was an exciting city that grew exponentially from 800 to 36,000 residents in the four years after the start of the gold rush. It provided the greatest opportunities for anyone considered "white," which at that time meant non-Chinese. Jews took a huge leap in social status in San Francisco.
By 1851, around 2,000 Jews lived in San Francisco. In the old country, their professions were mostly limited to that of peddler. Many of the early Jews in California started as peddlers to the gold miners and actually fared better than those miners.
The discovery of the silver strike in 1859 in Virginia City brought ten times more wealth than gold. By this time, the harbors of San Francisco were clogged with ships either abandoned or used as living accommodations. It was like a great, floating camp.
Most of the people who came to San Francisco were looking for wealth. When they didn't find it, they left discouraged. The Jews, however, never left. By the 1870's, there were 16,000 Jews in San Francisco, second in number to New York City. Wealthier Jews blended with elite San Francisco society, something they never imagined while in the old country. There were no Jewish neighborhoods, and Jews were proud of their city. By this time, San Francisco was the tenth largest city in the United States and Jews could be found in all professions in San Francisco. They saw their chance to start over in a new life and rose to become prominent merchants, bankers, politicians, and civic leaders. This was unique in the U.S. at that time and was due to the fact that San Franciscans were a diverse group who were more accepting of change.
In the 1880's, a new influx of Jews arrived in San Francisco. They were Eastern European Jews, mainly from Russia, and more devout in their religion than earlier Jewish settlers from Central Europe. They spoke Yiddish. The earlier Jewish settlers became afraid because these new Jewish immigrants stood out as being different. All along Jews had set up benevolent societies to help Jewish immigrants adapt in San Francisco. Now they had a new and more difficult task, to educate the new Jewish immigrants to blend into society.
A Little Bit About Life for the Hymans
Most of the Hyman brothers called San Francisco their home base, but some did live in other places for a time while establishing businesses.
Hyman W. Hyman appears to have traveled the most. He had a wholesale business in Honolulu at least by 1868. In the 1870 census, he and his brother, Morris Hyman, were living in Portland, Oregon. He was married in San Francisco in 1873, but he can be found in Nevada City, Nevada County, California in records for the years of 1875, 1878, and 1880. His wife gave birth to Solomon in 1875 in Nevada City and to Ruth in 1878 in San Francisco before moving back to Nevada City for a time. [The 1880 census also shows an older "daughter" named Able R., which was usually a boy's name. I believe there is the possibility of an early death or a mistake, which happened a lot in old census records. No evidence of Able is found in any later records naming his children.] The family resided in San Francisco after Hawaii.
Henry W. Hyman could only be found in San Francisco records. He had seven children there between the years 1869 and 1886.
Michael S. Hyman's passport indicates he lived for a time in California before moving permanently to New York. His wife was born in California.
According to census records, Morris Hyman was in Portland, Oregon in 1870 and in Honolulu in 1880. His first three children were born in Honolulu in the years 1884, 1886, and 1890. His next two children were born in San Francisco in 1894 and 1897. He remained in San Francisco after that.
One of Joseph Hyman's passport applications indicates he also lived for a time in Portland, Oregon. He was married in San Francisco in 1879 and can be found in Honolulu, Hawaii in newspaper ads in 1880, 1883 and 1887. He left Hawaii and went back to San Francisco in 1887.
The five Hyman brothers realized they had an advantage in each other--business partners they could trust. Here is a newspaper ad showing one of their certificates of partnership from 1880.
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| Published in the Daily Alta California on November 24, 1880. |
What kind of business were the Hyman brothers in? From the book, The Jews in the California Gold Rush, "Three brothers who maintained a widespread branch business were Hyman Wolf Hyman of Portland, Henry Wolf Hyman of San Francisco, and Michael S. Hyman of Honolulu, who established a branch of their clothing, boot, and hat business in Nevada City in 1874 under the name Hyman Brothers." From 1884 newspaper articles, merchandise brought overland by the Central and Southern Pacific Railroad Companies to California for Hyman Bros. consisted of 30 cases of boots and shoes; 3 boxes dry goods; 15 cases syrup in cans; 3,06l lbs. smoking tobacco; 125 boxes of candles; 11 boxes cut tobacco; and 50 cases of canned goods. In San Francisco, Hyman Bros had a wholesale grocery business. The Hawaii business will be written about in a future blog post.
The Hyman brothers were a success story. Newspaper clippings indicate multiple real estate transactions in San Francisco. Here is one such clipping.
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| Published in the San Francisco Call on June 19, 1907. |
Success is often revealed in the advantages of the next generation, as shown in a few news items. Solomon Hyman, son of Hyman W. Hyman, graduated from U.C. Berkeley. Another graduate of the University of California was Joseph Leo Hyman, son of Morris Hyman, who spent one year of college studying abroad in Geneva, Switzerland and was an ensign during WWI. Tessie and Hattie Hyman, daughters of Henry W. Hyman, appeared in print in 1888, which indicated they had "just returned from Europe after an absence of 18 months." Tessie and Hattie married successful and well-known spouses in 1891 according to newspaper entries. Tessie married an ex-assemblyman of San Francisco who was also an officer in a family-owned tanning company in Redwood City. Hattie married the consul-general for San Salvador who was in the New York consul office.
For anyone who is a direct descendant in the Hyman line, it might be interesting to obtain a list of probate estate actions filed with the court at http://www.californiaancestors.org/index.php?option=com_namesearch for $10 per estate. Enter "Hyman" in the Search Name field. Full probate records can be obtained by hiring a researcher through this website.
More newspaper research could be done. My objective was to give a glimpse of the Hyman brothers' whereabouts and success. Beware that there were other Hymans living in San Francisco at this time who may or may not be distantly related. There is a Wolf Hyman, and I wondered briefly whether he was the father of the Hyman brothers, but further research proved that not to be the case. There were also at least two other Henry Hymans, one of which was a brother of the Wolf Hyman just mentioned. The middle initial "W" is helpful to find the Henry of interest.
References
"American Jerusalem, Jews and the Making of San Francisco," a film produced by Actual Films/Switchback Films, 2014.
California Voter Registers for San Francisco and Nevada City in Nevada County.
Daily Alta California, Vol. 32, No. 11181, 24 Nov 1880; Vol. 42, No. 14305, 4 Nov 1888; and various dates in 1884 [from the California Digital Newspaper Collection at http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc].
The Jews in the California Gold Rush, by Robert E. Levinson, Ktav Publishing House, 1978, page 57.
San Francisco Call, Vol. 102, No. 19, 19 June 1907; 9 March 1891; and 18 November 1891 [from the California Digital Newspaper Collection at http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc].
San Francisco City Directories, various years.
United States Census Records, various dates and locations.
War Record of American Jews: Commissioned Officers, compiled by the Office of War Records of the American Jewish Committee in cooperation with the Jewish Welfare Board.
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