Jacob Ruppert (1842-1915)

He was born in New York City to Bavarian parents. His father was the first German malt dealer in New York City and it was he who instructed him in the art of brewing. At the age of ten, he started work in his father's Turtle Bay Brewery in Midtown Manhattan. In 1867, he went out on his own, founding the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Co. on Manhattan's Upper East Side which was then covered in woodland. Over time, his brewery became one of the largest and best-equipped breweries in the world. He also invested wisely in real estate which was a large part of the reason why the brewery was able to withstand the World Wars, and after his death both Prohibition and the Great Depression. It was said, "his charities were numerous but unostentatious". He had six children but two (Cornelia and Frank) did not survive him. He built a mansion at 1115 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and a summer home at Rhinebeck, Linwood. He died of cirrhosis at the age of 74, that someone kindly attributed as, "an illness brought on by the years of testing the very brew he sold". He left $20 million.