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Pennsylvania Trails History and Genealogy

Kern, Martin E.

"MARTIN E. KERN, financier and automobile manufacturer, and one of the city’s leading men of affairs, was reared in New York City. He completed his education in the Heidelberg University, Germany. As a young man Mr. Kern became interested in the life insurance business in New York City and became manager of the Mutual Life Insurance Company’s offices in that city. In 1906 his company transferred him to Allentown. Mr. Kern had been here less than a year when he affiliated himself with the Mack Bros. Motor Car Company in the capacity of vice president. When his company’s interests were absorbed by the International Motor Car Company, he remained as a trustee of the new corporation, representing the stockholders of the Mack Company. In October, 1916, he resigned his office.

In 1912 Mr. Kern organized the Penn Counties Trust Company, of which he has been vice president ever since. In 1911 he purchased the Daeufer Brewing Company’s plant and business and three years later became the owner of the Lieberman Brewing Company. He consolidated the two and conducts the business under the name of the Daeufer-Lieberman Brewing Company. He is also the owner of the Columbia Hotel building. In 1916 Mr. Kern purchased from the old Starin estate, the Glen Island parks adjacent to New York City, which a year later he sold at a handsome profit.

Mr. Kern is the organizer and treasurer of the Bethlehem Motors Corporation, manufacturers of the famous “Bethlehem” motor trucks, and which concern is building one of the largest truck factories in the country. Early in 1917 he purchased the famous “Croisic” office building at the corner of Twenty-sixth Street and Fifth Avenue, New York City.

In 1906 he married Jane B. Embree, of Augusta, Ga."