Born in Stuttgart, Eberbach emigrated to America as a young man. When he arrived in Ann Arbor in 1838, Eberbach was just twenty-one. But he had already apprenticed for three years with an apothecary and stud≠ied chemistry for two at the Stuttgart Polytechnicum, making him Ann Arbor's first trained pharmacist.
He found his first job here at William Maynard's general store on the corner of Main and Huron, working as a clerk and preparing medicines prescribed by local doctors. By 1843 he was ready to go into business for himself. He opened Washtenaw County's first drugstore in a small frame building on Huron across from the courthouse. He quickly outgrew the space and joined with confectioner Herman Schlak to build a commercial block on Main Street between Huron and Washington.
Just three years later, Eberbach took a partner, his cousin, Emanuel Mann, son of Jonathan Mann, one of Ann Arbor's original German settlers. The two built a store next door at 112 South Main Street (now Mayer-Schairer office supplies) and remained together for twenty-eight years. Open to new kinds of medicine, Eberbach knew about homeopathy because of his work in Germany. He also was a customer and advocate of Dr. Alvin Wood Chase.
Eberbach did not limit himself to his pharmacy; he had many other business and civic interests. In 1857 he and Mann and another relative, August Hutzel, started the Hutzel plumbing company next door to the pharmacy at 114 South Main (now also part of Mayer-Schairer). He was among the founders of the Ann Arbor Savings Bank and of Bethlehem Church of Christ and a member of the relief fire department. He was a musician and singer. (His son and grandson would become active in the University Musical Society.) But his greatest interest was Republican politics.
Eberbach started out as a Whig, supporting presidential candidate William H. Harrison in 1840. After the demise of the Whig Party, he took part in the 1854 convention in Jackson that formally launched the Republican Party. Local Republicans began hanging out in a little room behind Eberbach and Mann's pharmacy to discuss the issues of the day. In 1864, Eberbach was a member of the Electoral College that re-elected the nation's first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.
In 1868, Eberbach ran for office himself. He was elected mayor of Ann Arbor but lost his bid for re-election the next year. According to a memorial talk given after his death, he was rejected after "a gallant fight to drive the hogs and cows from the streets but the people believed that the experience was contrary to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution." Eberbach was paid a gold dollar for his year's service. His great-grandson, Robert Eberbach, still has it.
The same year Eberbach opened his store, he married Margaret (sometimes referred to as Margaretha) Laubengayer, who had been born near Stuttgart and immigrated with her family to a farm in Scio Township. Source https://aadl.org/aaobserver/18214.
Christian Eberbach (? - ?) was mayor of Ann Arbor and the owner of Eberbach Hardware, a downtown hardware store.
Eberbach Hardware, Northeast Corner, Main and Washington, ca. 1893, Ann Arbor District Library
<dl><dt>As Ann Arbor grew, stores that once offered a variety of general merchandise began to specialize in groceries, dry goods, or hardware. In 1878 Christian Eberbach took over Widenmann and Schuh's store and turned it into the largest of downtown’s many hardware businesses. He sold supplies to carpenters, painters, plasterers, and plumbers. On Saturdays farmers loaded their wagons with cowbells, pitchforks, axes, and machinery parts. Hardware stores also installed and repaired furnaces, roofs, gutters, and even locks. Eberbach's clerk, John Fischer, took over the business in 1892. </dt></dl>
