19 Facts About Simon Lazard

Simon Lazard was born to a Jewish family on April 8,1828, in Frauenberg, Moselle, Lorraine, in northeast France.

Simon Lazard was the son of Elie Lazard, a farmer, and Esther.

Simon Lazard's father died when he was three, and his mother was remarried to Moise Cahn, of Frauenberg.

Simon Lazard was the fifth oldest of the household's eleven children, seven fathered by Elie and four by Moise, a close-knit family.

Note: In early American newspapers, for the younger half-brother and half-sister Cahn siblings, the name Cahn Lazard was sometimes used, recognition of a connection to their elder Lazard half-siblings.

On January 16,1850, Simon Lazard boarded the steamship Falcon bound for California via Chagres, the Isthmus of Panama, and the Pacific Coast.

About 1860, looking for new business opportunities, Simon Lazard purchased a part of the Mission Woolen Mills and, later, the Pacific Woolen Mills, which profited from government contracts especially during the Civil War.

Simon Lazard was active in the wider social and political movements.

Simon Lazard was active later in the French Benevolent Society of California.

Simon Lazard Freres donated funds to an odd mix of causes: the Polish independence movement, the National Sanitary Fund of the Civil War era, a Jewish child threatened by Italian priests in Rome, and a national French Patriotism movement of the Franco-Prussian War era.

The brothers Simon Lazard helped with their brother-in-law Theodore Weill's tobacco-importing firm.

The Simon Lazard brothers came to California with the intention of working, saving, and returning home after becoming rich, a motive widely shared by immigrants of all backgrounds.

In 1861, after the completion of the transcontinental telegraph to San Francisco improved communication, thirty-three-year-old Simon Lazard left permanently for Paris; brother Elie followed five years later.

In 1887, Simon called David Cahn Lazard back to Paris to help manage from afar the California business.

Previously, in 1884, Simon Lazard had organized the London, Paris, and American Bank Ltd with Elie and with him on the board of directors.

In Paris, Simon Lazard served as the American representative for the Banque de France.

In fin de siecle Paris, Simon Lazard was the patriarch of Lazard Freres.

In 1867, Simon Lazard married Eve Rose Helene Foy and was the father of six children, including Lazard Freres banker Andre Lazard, an economist and sociologist fr:Max Lazard and Esther Lazard Fould, married to French industrialist fr:Rene Fould.

Simon Lazard died at his home at 48 rue des Belles Feuilles in Paris, February 24,1898.