HOW HOUDINI'S FATHER GOT TO WISCONSIN

Wisconsin brewery horses.

We’ve been delving further into the early history of the Weiss family in America, trying to solve a nagging mystery: how and why did they ever end up in Wisconsin, where Harry, then known as Ehrich Weiss, spent his youth?

We believe we’ve found the answer.

When Houdini’s father, M. Samuel Weiss, brought the family over from Budapest, they landed in New York. As Harry told the story, his father soon encountered a family friend named David Hammel, who convinced Weiss to move to Wisconsin.

But who was this Hammel? How did Harry's father meet him? The answer appears to be: through Harry’s rich uncle Simon!

Harry's mother had two sisters living in New York, one of whom had married a wealthy man, Simon Newman. Newman, as we’ve written, was in the liquor business, owner of a company called National Distillers. As he himself testified in court, the liquor business is fundamentally a horse business. 

David Hammel emigrated from Germany and moved to Wisconsin, where he became wealthy in the horse trade. He bought and sold horses all over the country and even imported horses from abroad. 

As it happens, National Distillers also had a branch in Wisconsin, run by David Hammel’s son-in-law, Leopold Wirth. Leopold Wirth’s father was Hammel’s business partner in the horse trade. So it is highly likely that David Hammel sold horses to Simon Newman.

It’s no big stretch to surmise that when Samuel Weiss arrived in New York around 1875, he would seek out his wealthy in-law Simon and be introduced to their German-speaking friend and business crony David Hammel. Hammel was very interested in building political alliances in Appleton, in order to get himself elected mayor. Speaking no English and without bar accreditation, Samuel Weiss could not work as a lawyer in America, so Hammel offered Houdini’s father a career-changing job as rabbi of Appleton, Wisconsin. We've written extensively on Harry's Wisconsin upbringing.

Hammel traveled frequently to New York, not only for business but also to spend time with the family prodigy, his nephew Leopold Hammel, a law student at Columbia University. Leopold Hammel returned to Wisconsin to practice law. He became District Attorney of Milwaukee and a member of the State Legislature. His cousin Leopold Wirth was indicted in a huge political fraud known as the Whiskey Ring. This had repercussions on Simon Newman’s business, too, and it appears that Simon himself narrowly evaded arrest. That story coming up.

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