Abraham Fisher House
As you stroll up East Main Street to the Britt Festival grounds, at 230 South 1st Street—the corner of 1st and Main—you pass the Abraham Fisher House with its large sequoias and monkey puzzle tree. Fisher constructed the central portion of the house around 1860, although the lot was not deeded to him until 1866. Fisher had arrived in Jacksonville around 1853. Joined by his brother Newman, the mercantile firm of A. Fisher and Brother was one of the earliest advertisers in Jacksonville’s first newspaper, the “Table Rock Sentinel.”
The Fisher brothers were certainly successful. By 1860, the brothers had constructed a warehouse near Fisher’s residence and 2 years later established a “branch store” in Josephine County. With $3,000 in real estate and $13,000 in personal property, Abraham Fisher was the third heaviest taxpayer in Jackson County in 1870.
Fisher relocated to San Francisco in 1878 although he retained interests in other local enterprises along with ownership of various pieces of property. His 3-year-old son is buried in the Jewish section of Jacksonville’s Pioneer Cemetery.