Samuel Heidelberger

Samuel Heidelberger died on November 1, 1901 at age 56. According to the local newspaper he was in poor health due to apoplexy – known today as having a series of strokes. 

Samuel was born in 1845 in Philadelphia where he attended public school until age 12 when he commenced clerking. He went to California in 1862, then left for Portland, where he clerked and kept store until 1864 when he went to Pioneer City in the Boise Basin and opened a store. He arrived in Silver City in 1866 with a total of one mexican dollar, which he retained as a pocket piece. He peddled chicken and vegetables and worked at odd times as a printer’s devil in the avalanche office. He opened a store in Silver in 1872, but lost heavily in mining stocks that season and seemed to have financial problems, that the newspaper said likely hastened his death. 

He married Miss Louise Block in 1879 in Silver City. He was a longtime member of the Masonic and Odd Fellows fraternities.