Jacob RUPPERT, Sr.

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Name:
Founder of the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Company. Jacob Ruppert, Sr. was one of the first and most noted brewers in the US. He was born in NYC and was a son of Franz and Wilhelmina Zindel-Ruppert of Bavaria. Under he expert guidance of his father, Jacob learned the brewing trade thoroughly. At ten he began working for his father's Turtle Bay Brewery in Midtown Manhattan which was then only two years old. Work was hard for him and his father, as machinery was scarce during the Civil War. In 1867 he opened the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Co. on Manhattan's then-forested Upper East Side. With a 50 foot square brick building, he opened what was to be the first of many breweries. The Jacob Ruppert Brewery steadily became one of the largest and best-equipped breweries in the world. He eventually broadened his entrepreneurial interests to include real estate which became the biggest money maker for the Rupperts helping them to survive (along with Jacob Jr's interest in baseball) the coming war, Prohibition and Great Depression. Jacob Jr. eventually took over the brewing business and brought it and the Ruppert name to greater fame and glory.Jacob Ruppert, Sr. was a forceful, single-purposed man with a great capacity for work. His charities were numerous but unostentatious.He married Anna Gillig, daughter of brewer George Gillig, and had six children: Cornelia, Jacob, Frank, Anna, George and Amanda, all interred with their father in our family's mausoleum. Jacob died of cirrhosis at the age of 74, an illness brought on by the years of testing the very brew he sold. (bio by: K. Jacob Ruppert)

Family/Spouse: Anna GILLIG. Anna was born on 12 Aug 1842 in New York City, New York; died on 16 Mar 1924 in New York City, New York. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Amanda Elizabeth RUPPERT was born on 3 Dec 1878 in New York City, New York; died on 25 Apr 1952 in New York City, New York; was buried in Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, Westchester Co., New York.

Notes:

Name:
Notes for Franz Maxmillian Ruppert:

Census records:

1855 NYS: Manhattan: age 43, living with wife, 4 children, father and many "servants", occupation: brewer (?). Name shown as Francis.
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Arrived NYC June, 1836; naturalized 7 November 1842 in NYC Court of Common Pleas (source: NARA). (K. Jacob Ruppert)
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// E-mails from K. Jacob Ruppert: //

"Turtle Bay Brewery was the 'Aktien 'Brauerei' and purchased by Franz in 1850...upon the purchase, he changed the name to Turtle Bay Brewery after the particular location in Manhattan where it was located...When he came to America, he started off as a grocer (like many Germans) and then in 1845 started a business as a malt dealer. The Turtle Bay Brewery was located between East 43rd and 44th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues (one square block). The last known reference of the brewery I can find was about 1869 and there after, until the early 1880s, it was known as Turtle Bay Park. I have little information on it other than cards, canceled cheques, coupons, menus, etc. of the enterprise of the time. From what I gather from the bits and pieces of information I learn from accounts of the time is that the brewery had a well known and very successful beer garden in the rear. Over time, the brewery began developing the beer garden more and more until it eventually began being listed as Turtle Bay Park (officially Turtle Bay Park Association). Here there was a beer garden with elements of a small carnival. I have a period invitation of a company giving an employee picnic there. "100 Years of Brewing" a very reliable source, records the Brewery being sold to a Jacob Robinson in 1869 with Franz thereafter retiring. However, I have diaries and business checks that make him a business man as late as the year of his death in 1883. There is a NY Times article during the Civil War of the park being a location freely offered by Franz to be used as a gathering place for Union soldiers before being shipped out."

"Franz Ruppert (aka Francis Ruppert), as well as being one of the oldest German citizens of New York at the time of his death, was the first German malt dealer in New York City and was the progenitor of one of the greatest American brewing dynasties, Jacob Ruppert Brewing Co. Franz immigrated to New York City from Goellheim, Germany (Bavaria) in 1836 and immediately went into the grocery business. Afterwards, he established a malt-house which prospered so well that in 1851 he bought the old Aktien Brewery in Manhattan's Midtown and renamed it the Turtle Bay Brewery. Turtle Bay Park, extending to the East River was connected with the brewery for the use of excursion parties and where many of the German regiments camped during the Civil War before proceeding to the fields. In 1869 he sold the brewery but his family still operated the park. His son, Jacob Ruppert Sr., had opened his own brewery on the Upper East Side (Yorkville) of Manhattan. He lived nearly his entire life at his home on East 44th Street with his wife, Wilhelmina Zindel-Ruppert (d. 3.9.1865) and later, he eventually retired to a river-front house in Astoria with his second wife, Sophia Gick-Ruppert (d. 1917). He was the oldest member of Trinity Lodge, Herrman Lodge of Odd-Fellows, German Aid Society and of the Brewers' Association.

On Sunday, September 30, 1883, Franz lost his fight to Bright's Disease (kidney failure) from which he was suffering since the preceding February.

Diary kept by a child of Franz Ruppert's second family with Sophia Gick (perhaps Anna Louise) states Franz's birthday is November 16, 1811 and not November 10 as his gravestone states. It is not unlikely that the headstone is incorrect.

Naturalization: November 07, 1842, Naturalized in the New York City Court of Common Pleas. His witness was Henry Schaefer, probably related to Philip Schaefer with whom he bought the Green-Wood Cemetery plot. Source: NARA, NE Regional Office, Varick Street, NYC. (Source: e-mail from K. Jacob Ruppert to Roy W. Boylan)
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New York City Directory entries (Ancestry.com):

1859: Ruppert, Franz, E. 45th n First Ave.
1860: Ruppert, Franz, E. 45th n Second.
1863: Ruppert, Franz, brewer, 192 E. 45th
1865: Ruppert, Franz, beer, 192 E. 45th
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The New York Times 3 October 1883:

Obituary:

AN OLD BREWER GONE

Funeral services will be performed over the remains of Franz Ruppert, in the German Masonic Temple, No. 220 East Fifteenth-street, this afternoon at 1 o'clock, at the conclusion of which the body will be taken to Greenwood for interment. Mr. Ruppert died on Sunday last, in the seventy second year of his age, of Bright's disease, from which he had been suffering since February. He was one of the oldest German citizens of New-York, the first German malt dealer in the City, and the father of Jacob Ruppert, the brewer. Mr. Ruppert was born at Goelheim, on the Rhine, Nov. 10, 1811, and came to this country in 1836. He first engaged in the grocery business, but afterward established a malt-house at Thirteenth-street and Avenue C, and in this business he prospered so well that in 1851 he was able to establish a brewery of his own, which he did at Forty-fifth-street, between First and Second avenues, under the name of the Turtle Bay Brewery. A park, extending to the East River, was connected to the brewery for the use of excursion parties, and here many of the German regiments camped during the war before proceding to the field, Mr. Ruppert feeding them until they were ordered to the front. Among the regiments quartered at the Turtle Bay Park were the Twentieth, Fifty-eighth, and One Hundred and Nineteenth, and during the draft riots of 1863 the Seventh Regiment also partook of Mr. Ruppert's hospitality. In 1870, he retired from business, and since that time had lived quietly at his home in East Forty-fourth-street. Mr. Ruppert was the oldest member of Trinity Lodge, F. and A. M., a member of Herrman Lodge of Odd-fellows and of the Brewers' Association, and for many years of the German Aid Society. He leaves a widow and seven children - four sons and three daughters.
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LDS - IGI Record has him born 12 November 1811 and christened 15 November 1811 at Evangelisch, Goelheim, Pfalz, Bayern (Bavaria).
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=======================================================More About Franz Maxmillian Ruppert:
Burial: October 3, 1883, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York50
Cause of Death: Bright's disease

Franz married Wilhelmina ZINDEL. Wilhelmina was born on 3 May 1813 in Bavaria, Germany; died on 9 Mar 1865; was buried on 11 Mar 1865 in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]