admin JOSEPH B. MAYER is one of the foremost men in the country in traction interests and electric development, and to give an account of his career is to tell the story of signal achievements in the business world.
Mr. Mayer was born in Freiburg, Baden, Germany, January 4, 1850, graduated from the Freiburg Gymnasium in 1866. In 1868 he came to the United States and settled in Buffalo, where for four years he was employed as a bookkeeper. In 1872 he began importing diamonds, forming with Louis Weill a partnership which lasted till 1876. Thereafter up to 1892 Mr. Mayer carried on the business alone.
From 1892 to 1895 he devoted himself to real property interests, becoming the organizer and manager of syndicates which purchased large tracts of land in Buffalo and vicinity, made improvements and put the property on the market. In 1895 he organized the Buffalo Traction Company, of which he was Vice President, Treasurer and General Manager until the corporation was absorbed by the Buffalo Street Railway Company in 1899. Throughout the mergers, whose outcome was the International Railway Company, Mr. Mayer continued to hold his interests in Buffalo traction enterprises, and he retains his stock in the present company.
At Lima, O., he organized the Lima Railway Company and the Lima Electric Light and Heating Companies; at Louisville, Ky., he established the Louisville Lighting Company, and in Indiana was organizer of the Fort Wayne Lighting Company. Meanwhile in co-operation with the Widener-Elkins Philadelphia syndicate Mr. Mayer was concerned in a gigantic consolidation of properties controlling 600 miles of railroad in Ohio. Another great merger engineered by Mr. Mayer was the consolidation known as the Western New York & Pennsylvania Traction Company.
But what is probably Mr. Mayer’s crowning achievement thus far is the organization and financing of the Buffalo & Lake Erie Traction Company, which has established a through line of electric road communication between Buffalo and Erie, Pa.
Mr. Mayer is a Democrat, and he has often been urged to become a candidate for elective office, but has always declined. In 1895 he accepted the appointment of Civil Service Commissioner, and filled that position with efficiency and credit.
Mr. Mayer is affiliated with Washington Lodge of Masons, is an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, a life member of the German Young Men’s Association, belongs to the Council of the Charity Organization Society, and is deeply interested in the Free Kindergarten, and many similar societies. He is a member of the Buffalo, Country, Ellicott and Liberal clubs, and the Manhattan and Lawyers’ clubs of New York City; is a former President of the Temple Beth-Zion, and a prominent member of that organization. He has traveled extensively in this country and Europe.
July 15, 1874, Mr. Mayer married Belle Falck of Buffalo.
SOURCE: Memorial and Family History of Erie County New York; Volume I