Hirsch Loeb Sabsovich

Hirsch Loeb Sabsovich (1860 to 1915) was a Russian-born Jewish American agronomist, chemist, agricultural educator, Mayor of Woodbine, New Jersey, General Agent of the Baron de Hirsch Fund and a leader of the Am Olam movement. Born in Berdiansk, he studied law at Odesa University without completing the course and chose instead to study agriculture in Zurich. He emigrated to the United States in 1887, worked in an agricultural laboratory in Fort Collins, Colorado, and lectured in chemistry at Wyoming College. He was chosen to lead the Woodbine Jewish agricultural community established in the 1890s, and when it was incorporated as a borough in 1903 he was elected its first mayor. His wife published a biography of him in 1922.