David Mayer

(1815 - 1980)

Born in 1815 in Bavaria, David Mayer trained as a dentist before immigrating to the United States in 1839 and settling in Atlanta in 1850. He helped establish the public-school system in Atlanta and was active on the Board of Education. He was a dry goods merchant who accumulated a net worth of $59,000 by 1859, and he owned six slaves. He was a founding member of the Hebrew Benevolent Society, which purchased burial plots at Oakland Cemetery in 1860.

During the Civil War, Mayer served as Governor Joseph E. Brown’s commissary officer. This story was often recounted about him: “One day, three Union officers called on [Mayer], offering every inducement for him to help confiscate cotton stored at different points around Atlanta. He listened and replied, ‘Are you soldiers or robbers? The people who own this cotton are Christians; I am a Jew. If you take this cotton, you will take it over my dead body. You may assassinate me but in no other way can you keep me from preventing your doing this great wrong.’ For a while, it appeared that the soldiers would kill him, but then they went away. The next day, he went to the general in command and told him what happened and asked: ‘Will you permit this robbery of these people? As a solider, as a noble man, and as a Mason, I beseech that you do not.’ The general was an honest man and did prevent it, but the soldiers never forgave him and for a long time his life was in danger.”

After the Civil War, Mayer was a founding member of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, now known as The Temple. He served as the congregation’s president from 1871 to 1875.