Benjamin Latshaw Fahnestock (1810-1888)

He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1829, at Pittsburgh, he became a clerk in the wholesale drug business for his cousin, Dr Benjamin A. Fahnestock. Having become a partner five years later, the firm was dissolved in 1857. He then bought Fleming Brothers and engaged in the sam business this time with his son, Benjamin S. Fahnestock. In 1867, he admitted his son-in-law, Benjamin F. Vandevort into the firm. Together, they started the Iron City (or Fahnestock) White Lead Company, "one of the largest and most prosperous businesses of its kind in the country". Benjamin married his first wife, Elizabeth, at Pittsburgh in 1832. She was the sister of General Herman Haupt, chief engineer of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. They were the parents of eight children. Elizabeth died at Pittsburgh in 1849 and in the following year at Baltimore he married his second wife (and cousin), Mary, and they were the parents of four further children.