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After finishing his academical education he went abroad and visited some of the most famous places in the Old World, drawing stores of information from every object he saw and every occurrence he met with, thus enlarging his mind, cultivating his taste, and increasing his enjoyment for the beautiful and sublime in nature. On returning home Mr. Myers had fully decided upon the choice of a profession, and in 1875 he entered the celebrated old law office of Smith, Moak & Buchanan, where he was rapidly advanced in his knowledge of the law under the profound oral instructions of its distinguished members. He was a faithful and diligent law student, and read with avidity the best legal text books, besides numerous other treatises on general subjects embraced in the magnificent law library of the late Hon. N. C. Moak, upon whose death he delivered on September 19, 1892, a most fitting and eloquent eulogy. And to this gentleman of high professional ability and vast literary acquisitions Mr. Myers doubtless owes something towards the cultivation and development of his own well known taste for universal literature. While remaining with this firm he also took a thorough course of lectures at the Albany Law School, from which he was graduated in 1880, taking the degree of LL.B. The five years he spent with Smith, Moak & Buchanan were years of deep study, rare intellectual pleasure, and lasting profit, upon which he will always look back with pride and satisfaction.
After leaving the law school Mr. Myers began for himself the general practice of the law, and succeeded in establishing an excellent reputation as a thorough, painstaking lawyer, a safe, candid, and conscientious legal adviser. His specialty in the law department has been in investigating, and expounding cases pertaining to Surrogate's Court, and to the law and practice of voluntary assignments; and in this field he has been uniformly and eminently successful. One of his earlier and most memorable efforts was in connection with the contested will case of the late J. H. Hidley, of Albany, in which $90,000 were involved. Hundreds of other cases of less note he has carried to a speedy and satisfactory issue and settlement on his part. He has likewise gained wide distinction as counsel for the Accident Insurance Company of North America, settling many hundred claims. Mr. Myers now devotes his attention to office practice, and to the management and care of large estates, for which he is admirably adapted and perfectly responsible. He has been and is now the executor and administrator of vast estates involving many hundred thousand dollars. Like his father, he is himself a large owner of real estate and has inherited from the old stock a thorough knowledge of the same, hence he is often called upon and his judgment requested in the investment of moneys and of estates.
In 1887 Mr. Myers made a second tour abroad, combining pleasure with study. He remained six months in Europe, visiting most all places of interest from the borders of Russia to the French coast and from the Adriatic to the North Sea. He possesses a vigorous constitution, a most active temperament, and a quick, elastic step, and is ever attentive to business demands. He belongs to no societies, clubs, nor organizations except the Masonic order. He has an utter aversion to politics and political life, and has declined various offers of trust and responsibility in this line, even refusing a directorship in one of the city's leading banks, in which he was a heavy stockholder.
Mr. Myers is a close student of human nature, a keen observer of men, a born financier, and though comparative young in years his advice on men and affairs has been and is constantly sought by many prominent merchants and bankers. He is ready in conversation, and has a friendly, social, benevolent nature, with a just sense of what is right, and an integrity that is unimpeachable. His word is as good as his bond. His love of books is a marked feature of his busy, useful career. Besides possessing an excellent law library he has gathered around him one of the largest and finest miscellaneous collections of books in the city, His taste runs in the direction of rich, rare, standard volumes and choice editions, and in the calmer hours of his life he finds a world of pleasure in poring over his literary treasures; for reading and study is his life from which he would not be debarred. He is not only a well read lawyer, but thoroughly posted on all general historical, biographical, literary, and scientific topics.
In 1888 Mr. Myers was married to Miss Pauline Fisher, an estimable and accomplished young lady of Logansport, Ind., and their pleasant home at No. 12 First street, Albany, is the center of true domestic happiness and hospitality. They have one son, Daniel Herman Myers, who was born March 16, 1889.
The legal profession of Albany includes many a bright and honored name in the exhibition of those manly, upright, and progressive qualities which command the respect and esteem of all good citizens, and prominent among this class of studious, substantial, earnest workers in the walks of professional and business life is the well known lawyer, Max Myers, the subject of this sketch. Born in Albany on the 18th of October, 1855, he is of Hebrew parentage, and is one who is proud of his race and his ancestry. He is the only son of Herman Myers, a native of Hesse-Cassell, Germany, who in early life found his way to the free soil of America and made the capital city of the Empire State his residence. The mother of Max Myers is Sophie Kohn, whose ancestors for three generations back were natives and residents of the quaint old cities of Bamberg and Nurenberg, Bavaria, where they were, each in their time, prominent merchants and bankers. Even to this day her brothers are still the leading bankers of Nurenberg. The career of Herman Myers affords another notable example of the success that may be achieved under our free, benign government by a steady perseverance in the line of industry and honorable dealing. When Herman Myers came to American shores he found himself almost a penniless young man, but with willing hands and a hopeful heart he began the race of an industrious life in a very humble way and with many obstacles stretching along his path. His pecuniary success was marked at every step, and before many years had passed he had gained a competency. Steadily pursuing his progressive course in financial walks he has come at length to be one of the largest real estate owners and foremost citizens of Albany. And deservedly have his efforts been crowned with rich and abundant success, for Mr. Myers is a man of incessant labor, untiring energy and enterprise, and incorrupted integrity — a treasury to any individual or nation. He is a friend and advocate of the best and most promising in stitutions of his adopted city, and is highly esteemed by all who know of his gentle, worthy, and noble qualities.
From his earliest youth Max Myers evinced a studious disposition and a great desire for establishing an intellectual aud business fabric. He was at first carefully instructed by private tutors, and afterward, when scarcely nine years of age, became a pupil in Professor Cass's Classical Institute in Albany. Young as he was he now began to realize the truthfulness of old Lawrence Sterne's remark, that "the desire for knowledge, like the thirst for riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it." Inspired by such a feeling he entered with great zest and pleasing anticipations the Albany Boys' Academy. In this excellent time-honored institution he pursued his various regular studies with true devotion during a period of five years and was graduated with honor in 1871, at about the age of sixteen, being the youngest in his class.
