Dr. H. Baer

Dr. H. Baer retail and wholesale drug store was established by Dr. Herman Baer (1830-1901) in 1869. Born to a Jewish family in Germany, Herman immigrated to United States in 1847 and settled in Charleston where, according to the Southern Christian Advocate, he boarded with Methodist preacher David Derrick and his wife. In 1848, Herman converted to Christianity and joined Charleston’s Trinity Church. After working as a private tutor teaching Hebrew, German, and French, Herman moved to Spartanburg and served as the principal of the preparatory department at Wofford College in 1855. In 1861, he married Irish immigrant Annadora Hewetson (1819-1874), received a medical degree from the Medical College of the State of South Carolina, and began serving as a surgeon in the Confederate army.

After the Civil War, he returned to Charleston and began working for Scottish immigrant Alexander Cairncroff Phin (1810-1895) at his drug store, A. C. Phin. The following year, Herman partnered with Dr. Edward Henry Kellers (1836-1906) to buy Alexander’s store at 131 Meeting Street and establish E. H. Kellers’ & Co. at the same location. Herman and Edward dissolved their partnership in 1869, and Herman continued to operate at 131 Meeting Street under his own name. Herman’s first wife Annadora died in 1874, and the following year, he married Alexander’s daughter, Adela Budlond Phin (1857-1891).

In 1878, Herman opened a second location at 45 Calhoun Street, and in 1885, he moved from 131 Meeting Street and 45 Calhoun Street to 193-195 Meeting Street and 59 Calhoun Street. A few years after Adela’s death in 1891, Herman married Sallie Wightman Pemberton (1846-1917). Herman was still listed as a wholesale and retail druggist in the Charleston city directory the year he died.