Before Hansen there was... Herman Vollmer

 Herman Vollmer was born in Baden, Germany on June 18, 1861 the son of Joseph and Walburga Mauer Vollmer. In 1879 he attended what we would call college in England.  He came to the United States in 1882 through Boston and moved to Princeton.  He worked for Uel Mathes Caudell (b.1854,d.1943) until early 1883. Mr Caudell was a watchmaker with a jewelry store on the Kidd block.   Did you ever get the idea that Princeton was some kind of hotbed for jewelry and clocks??  Vollmer went into business for himself in early 1883 opening the Pfohl shoe store. This must have been short-lived as I can't find much about this.  Instead, I find an advertisement for Vollmer as a watch, clock, and jewelry dealer in the Clarion on April 5, 1883. The ad says that he is operating out of "Keimer's Grocery Store" on the east side of the square.  The ad states "I have had five years' experience in Germany, and three years' experience in England in watch-making and repairing."  He moved into his own store in May 1883 at 103 West Broadway called Devin's corner back then.  Known today as Susan Bobe's dining room.

On September 1, 1885, Herman married Mary C. Keimer.  She was the sister of John Keimer owner of Keimer's Grocery Store mentioned earlier.  Together they had 6 children.

In 1898, Vollmer hired Julius Hansen.  An article in the April 21, 1898 edition of the Clarion mentioned Julius as an employee.  There was another article talking about a project that Vollmer's was hired to do.  It stated that he assigned the job to Julius and spoke highly about the quality of his work.

I was going to write a separate article about this incident, but since it happened at Vollmer's store, I will include it here. In the July 6, 1899 edition of the Clarion, there is a story about Julius Hansen while working for Vollmer.  It turns out that Vollmer was responsible for the clock in the tower of the courthouse at the time.  A service contract perhaps?  According to the article, Mr Vollmer was out of town and left instructions for Julius to wind the clock, but he put it off too long.

I learned that back then, the bells in the courthouse, in addition to time, were also used to notify the fire department of the address of a fire.  Kind of like Morse code, only with bells.  Julius put off winding the clock and the bells started ringing in an abnormal way that started to confuse the fire department.   The article says "The noon strokes were slow and painful and indicated the striking mechanism had that tired feeling."  It goes on to say that Julius fixed it and "how tempus is fugiting as they did before."  I had never heard the phrase "tempus fugit" before, but it is Latin for "time flies."

In May of 1900, Julius left Vollmer's to go work for Bachner Timepiece.  More on that in the next article.

On December 5, 1901, Herman's wife Mary passed away.  He remarried the following September to Catherine Wagner.

Herman Vollmer passed away on March 6, 1937.  He is buried in Saint Joseph Catholic Cemetery in Princeton. His obituary points out how he was a very long-term business man in the community and was well respected. 

As for his part in Hansen's history, he gave Julius his start in the Princeton community.  Julius probably learned a lot of the ins and outs of running your own business.  And even though Julius had plenty of his own training, I'm sure he learned a lot about jewelry making and watch repair from Herman Vollmer.

Here is a photo of Vollmer's store