Sacramento County
Biographies
HENRY &
HERMAN FISHER & CO.
H. FISHER & CO., confectionery manufacturers and agents for the American Biscuit Company, have built up their present immense business from the smallest beginning. The firm is composed of Henry and Herman Fisher, father and son. The father was born in Holstein, Germany, April 3, 1839, and at the age of seventeen years entered upon a seafaring life, engaging first in fishing in the North Sea. He engaged in merchandise a little while, and the second year he was on a schooner which made three trips to England, and one trip through the Holstein canal to the Baltic, etc. The next year he went on the Christina from Hamburg to Buenos Ayres and to Java, and returned to Hamburg, being absent fourteen months; next was a trip to the West Indies, returning with a cargo of tobacco, rice, gum, etc. Next he came on the passenger vessel Bavaria to New York, and after making a flying visit by rail to Mobile he was one of the crew of the Ocean Express to come by way of Cape Horn to this coast, arriving at San Francisco August 5, 1859. Mr. Fisher tried mining on Weaver Creek, but with little success, and he went to work in the neighborhood for $3 a day; then he was employed at “Jayhawker,” and next in the vineyard of Alhoff at Coloma, until the latter part of 1860. Coming thence to Sacramento, he obtained work as a threshing-machine hand for a season. Then he was employed by a farmer named Gregory nine months; next, in partnership with Frederick Harms, he embarked in ranching on a twenty-acre tract along the river; but the floods of 1861-’62 ruined his crop and he was left without a dollar except two horses. Meeting with a former shipmate, he went to San Francisco, and for three months was engaged in boating to Sacramento, Stockton, Napa, etc. He was sick for some months. From the spring of 1863 until the fall he worked for James Miller at the San Francisco House on the Carson road. Next he was employed in Sacramento by Peter Tietjens, brother of the famous singer. July 10, 1865, he bought out the confectionery business of Henry Schroeder, on K street, where now is the small candy store, in the Metropolitan Block. After a time he took in Mr. Schroeder as a partner, and later another partner, Albrecht; the firm name then became Fisher, Schroeder & Co. In the spring of 1868 the place of business was changed to its present location, and during the same year Mr. Fisher bought out his partner, and then carried on the business alone until he admitted his son Herman, forming the present firm. In 1874 he bought the ground now occupied by the business and erected a substantial brick building. He was married in this State to Miss Jeanette Helwig, and their children are Herman, Lizzie, Henry and Nellie. Mr. Fisher is a member of Concord Lodge, No. 17, F. & A. M.; of Sacramento Lodge, No. 2, I. O. O. F.; of the Knights of Honor; of the American Legion of Honor, and of the A. O. U. W. Herman Fisher, the elder son, was educated at the public schools and at the private school of Professor Goethe; at the age of fourteen he entered his father’s store, and two years afterward commenced attending Professor Atkinson’s Commercial College, where he graduated in half the time usually taken. Since then he has been a partner with his father and business manager. He is a member of the A. O. F., and is a director in the Sacramento Board of Trade. He was married October 11, 1887, to Miss Ida Louisa Bragg, a native of this city. The business of this firm is now almost altogether wholesale, their trade extending throughout the length and breadth of the Pacific coast; and twice a year their traveling salesman extend their trips into Texas, New Mexico, Utah and Montana, where they have a large trade. In their manufactory here, from forty-eight to seventy employes are kept steadily at work, according to the season. They take special pains to have all ingredients used absolutely pure, and all the work neatly done. To run the machinery a sixteen-horse-power engine is used. A novelty introduced by them is a neat little bucket in which packages of mixed candies are shipped and delivered without change of position from the original arrangement.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Pages 679-680. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.