From HISTORY OF THE PAN-HANDLE, West Virginia, 1879, by J. H. Newton, 
G. G. Nichols, and A. G. Sprankle. Page 264  

Contributed by Linda Cunningham Fluharty.


DR. ABRAHAM L. MAYER is Rabbi of the Jewish Synagogue, in this city, is a native 
of Soest, Westphalia, Prussia, and was born in 1811. His father was married in 
Westphalia under the reign of Frederick the Great, when it was required of an 
Israelite who got married, that in order to secure himself a citizenship, he 
should purchase out of the Royal porcelaine fabrique $300 worth of chinaware. He 
raised fifteen children, of which Abraham is the youngest, and during his life 
nobly fought his country's battles, being taken prisoner both by the Austrians 
and the French. At ten years of age, Abraham, the subject of our sketch, was 
placed in college, and at fifteen had sufficiently progressed to enter upon a 
much higher grade of scholarship in Munster College, wherewith was connected the 
Rabbinnial studies, and here he graduated in 1830. He then received the 
recognition of the Prussian government, as a chaplain and visited the Rhine 
provinces down to 1837. He further qualified in Darmstadt in 1841, and again in 
1853 for the southern states, all the certificates for which examinations the 
doctor still holds in his possession. He also filled a call to ministerial 
duties in Alzei, where he was succeeded by the eminent Dr. S. Adler, of New 
York, after which he proceeded to Mayence, waere he still pursued theological 
studies up to 1861, receiving a certifcate from the district Rabbi. So early as 
1841 the doctor took up the author's pen and has the honor of having compiled 
several important geological, theological and other practical works that will 
long perpetuate his name. In 1861 he arrived in New York, officiated as a Rabbi 
in Syracuse, and thence went to Richmond where he also filled the professorship 
of an extensive college over six years. He came to Wheeling in 1872 and assumed 
his present charge, where he has ever since, and still officiates. He was 
married in 1842, to Louisa, third daughter of Zacharias Bamberger, of 
influential descent who, during the French revolution belonged to the 
"Jacobins," and was condemned with many others to Fortress Konigtsein, and died 
in 1852. Mrs. Mayer died on the 17th of February, 1873, while on a visit to her 
son - aged seventy-four years. They had only one son, a resident and classical 
teacher in Baltimore, at whose residence Mrs. Mayer expired.