Early Life
Moses Herman Cone was born in 1857 in Jonesborough, Tennessee. He was the eldest of thirteen children of Jewish-German immigrants. His parents, Herman Kahn and Helen Guggenheimer, emigrated from Germany to America in the 1840s. Moses' father changed his last name from Kahn to "Cone" almost immediately upon arrival in the United States to become more American.
Moses' father Herman had a dry goods and grocery business in Jonesborough along with his brother-in-law Jacob Adler, the husband of his sister Sophia. While running the business Herman and Jacob would alternately make week-long peddling trips selling their wares. On one of these trips Herman met Helen Guggenheimer near Lynchburg, Virginia. They married in 1856 and Moses was born in 1857. Two years later came their next child named Ceaser with whom Moses enjoyed a close relationship all his life.
The family lived in Jonesborough until 1870 and had an additional five children. Between 1857 and 1870 Moses' father became fairly well-to-do through his business affairs and real estate ventures. The family then moved to Baltimore, Maryland. There Moses' father and relatives started a wholesale grocery business called Guggenheimer, Cone, & Company, Wholesale Grocers. Then in 1873 Jacob Adler also moved to Baltimore and went in partnership with Herman selling groceries. They formed a new firm that was called Cone & Adler. They ran the business successfully and in 1878 dissolved it. This same year Moses' parents had their last child.
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