Rieman family photograph collection

The Rieman family of Baltimore is descended from Daniel Rieman (1755 – 1829), a German immigrant who operated a sugar refinery in Baltimore City. His son, Henry Rieman, was a provision dealer and commission merchant in the meat market, importing pork and bacon to Baltimore from the western states. His firm, Henry Rieman and Sons, prospered during the nineteenth century. Henry Rieman’s son, Joseph Henry Rieman, continued his father’s business in partnership with his brother Alexander Rieman. Alexander also served as a president of the Maryland-Pennsylvania Railway Company, while Joseph Henry expanded his business investments into real estate, until his holdings in Baltimore City represented some of the best properties in the downtown business district. In 1864, Joseph Henry purchased Dumbarton Farm in Baltimore County near Towson for the family seat, as he had recently married Annie Lowe of Dayton, Ohio. Dumbarton remained in the Rieman family until 1954, when the Baltimore County Board of Education purchased the property from Charlotte Rieman McIntosh in order to build an urgently-needed new junior high school for Towson. The house, as a historic landmark, was preserved, and is currently occupied by the Baltimore Actor’s Theatre Conservatory.

Charles E. Rieman, a long-time Baltimore banker and the son of Joseph Henry, was interested in the family’s history and genealogy, and in the 1890s, began researching both the Lowe and Rieman family roots. Charles’ nephew, Joseph Rieman McIntosh, continued these genealogical investigations, collecting most the papers that are contained in this collection. Other members of the family mentioned in the collection are Margaret Kalbfus, the daughter of Daniel Rieman and the sister of Henry; Mary Jones Rieman, Henry’s wife; Peter Lowe, Annie Lowe Rieman’s father; Elizabeth Taylor Goodwin Rieman, the wife of Charles; Perlee Lowe Rieman, Charles brother and the son of Joseph Henry and Annie Lowe; and Charlotte Rieman McIntosh and David G. McIntosh, Jr., parents of Joseph Rieman McIntosh, the collector of this collection. J. Rieman McIntosh died in 1988 without children. For a fuller explanation of the relationships of the various Rieman and McIntosh family members, see J. Rieman McIntosh, Genealogy and history of the Rieman family of Baltimore, descended from Daniel Rieman 1755 – 1829, a native of Germany, (Baltimore: private printed, 1986), in the Main Reading Room.