The earliest documented proprietor in the family’s Halberstadt commercial story.
The Berend Lehmann Museum identifies Jacob Reichenbach as the founder of the business in the mid-nineteenth century. The firm itself later advertised 1843 as its founding year.
Every surviving source agrees that Jacob died on 17 December 1872. His birth year remains unsettled: the museum, an Ahnentafel and a family chart give 1814, 1817 and 1816 respectively.
He married Helene Heinemann. Later derivative research called her Lea Löwenheim, but matching dates and parents show that the second name is a corruption, not another wife; the cemetery register records her as Heynemann-Löwenheyn, the likely source of the misreading.
The family genealogy also records a son, David Otto Reichenbach, who died in childhood. The cemetery register gives his years as 1851–1857; no civil birth or death record has yet been located.
Sources
Records and testimony
- Berend Lehmann Museum panel
- Ahnentafel
- Family descent chart
- 1936 trade listing
Evidence note
Family sources place Jacob’s birth between 1814 and 1817; no known gravestone or civil birth record resolves the year.