Ferdinand S. Adolph Bahn (1823–c. 1901) was born in Wittringen, Prussia (now Wettringen, Germany). According to the 1900 census, he arrived in the United States in 1840, but the earliest known record of him in Texas is the 1850 census, which places him in Galveston as part of C. C. Moore’s household, employed as a silversmith. A history of 19th-century Travis County places his arrival in Austin at 1853. In 1855 Bahn’s name first appears in Austin newspapers, and within a few years he advertised as a “manufacturer and repairer of gold and silverware.” In Austin, Bahn developed a business that spanned the transition from manufacturing to retailing. As the Civil War ended and harder financial times descended upon Texas, Bahn took on a partner, B. Schumann (Bahn & Schumann, active c. 1867–1873). Their advertising focus shifted from the manufacture of silverware to the retail of eyeglasses and lenses as well as Wheeler and Wilson Sewing machines. Subsequent advertisements for Bahn ceased to mention the manufacture of wares. In 1874 Bahn advertised as a “watchmaker and jeweler,” and in 1879 he issued an advertisement that mentioned only his business as a dealer in Spencer Optical Manufacturing Company “diamond spectacles.” Bahn’s life also highlighted some of the more rough-and-tumble aspects of 19th-century Texas. In 1873 he sued to recover one of his Austin properties from armed squatters, and in 1883 his son and son-in-law exchanged gunfire on Austin’s main avenue over the matter of Bahn’s recent divorce. The end of Adolph Bahn’s career is as elusive as his arrival date. He worked at his store into the 1880s, contributing a prize for the 1882 Capitol State Fair in Austin, and came to be referred to as “Old Gentleman” Bahn. His son Gustav Adolph Bahn eventually took over the firm, but until the mid-1890s he continued to use the name A. Bahn. In the 1889–90 Austin directory, his firm is listed twice, as “BAHN[,] ADOLPH (Gus. A. Bahn)” and “BAHN[,] GUSTAV A. (Adolph Bahn),” suggesting the transition to the younger man’s control while retaining all possible benefit of the well-known older man’s reputation. Although it is unclear when exactly Adolph Bahn retired from his Austin store, he died in California as a landlord.

Related examples: The mate to this spoon is privately owned; Steinfeldt and Stover 1973, p. 180, no. 229.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.