Meddin History
At its height, Meddin Meat Packing Company, located in Savannah, Georgia on the Louisville Road, supplied meat to much of Southeast Georgia and Coastal South Carolina and had a very favorable listing with the venerable financial firm of Dun and Bradstreet. The Meddin Brothers name is part of the masonry that now houses Meddin Studios.
Though the Savannah abattoir was its main base, meat packing company plants were also located in Charleston, SC and Macon, GA. The company continued to expand in the late 1930s with a presence in Savannah’s old City Market until 1954, the year City Market was demolished. A food locker building on East Broad and 37th Street later supplied the company’s hotel and restaurant customers. It also housed Meddin Enterprises and its real estate branch, Meddin Investments, which dealt mainly with mortgages, but at one point also owned the whole of Ft. Screven on Tybee Island, having purchased it from the US government after World War II. Streets in Ft. Screven still bear the family name.
In the 1960s there was also an office on Oglethorpe Avenue. The meat packing plant closed its doors in 1969, but Meddin Enterprises continued for another decade or so after that.
The historical record shows the Meddin brothers as leaders, builders and members of the Savannah Jewish community and the community at large. They were active in the B’nai B’rith Jacob Synagogue, The Agudath Achim Synagogue, the Temple Mickve Israel and the JEA (Jewish Educational Alliance) in Savannah. They participated and held offices in numerous other civic, shrine, community and religious organizations in Savannah, the city of Tybee Island and Charleston, SC as well.
In 1893 Abraham Meddin made his way to Savannah having entered the US via Ellis Island, NY. He came to North America aboard a ship named the Spaarndam. His wife Hannah and their 2 eldest sons, Isaac (Ike) and Alexander (Alex) followed in 1901 aboard another ship, the Statendam.
They had come from what was then Kolonia, Yakowlew, Poland; now Belarus (White Russia) where the family owned and operated the village lumber mill. Kolonia is located in that flexible European area that had once also been Russia and Lithuania.
Beginning in 1902 three more sons, Auzer (Asa), Hyman (Hymie) and Elliot (Itchy) were born to Abraham and Hannah in Savannah. A daughter, Freida, was born too, but died as a toddler.
Their home was on Tattnall Street just off the bluff on the Savannah River.
Abraham ran a shoe repair shop. His five sons on reaching adulthood tried other ventures. Then in 1917, near the end of World War I, they bought Butler Provision Company and Meddin Meat Packing Company was born.
Each of the five brothers went on to have families of their own. Though none of the brothers survive today, their direct descendants number nearly a hundred individuals living as of 2010 in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Maryland, Washington, Tennessee, California, Pennsylvania, New York Montana, Virginia and Australia. Some are still proud to be living in Savannah.