Maier Burgauer was born in December 1781 in Hohenems as the son of Jeanette Moos and Benjamin Burgauer. His mother came from an old Hohenems merchant family that traded in cattle and grain. Her father Maier Moos was the head of the community from 1753 to 1777, a period in which the survival of the community was threatened after the Hohenems Counts died out. Maier Burgauer’s father, Benjamin Burgauer, had lived in Hohenems since 1770 and had succeeded his mother from the Austrian margraviate of Burgau near Augsburg. After his birth, Maier married the Innsbruck-born merchant Maier Jonathan Uffenheimer in Hohenems. Maier Burgauer was the youngest of four children and worked as a peddler and merchant. His first marriage to Dina Lazarus remained childless and was dissolved in 1826. His second marriage to Henriette Frei produced eight children, two of whom died in infancy. The others emigrated to Philadelphia in the US and to St. Gallen, where his son Adolf Burgauer became the first Jew to obtain citizenship and laid the foundation for a successful family business (textiles such as embroidery, white linen and curtains). Maier Burgauer died in 1862 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Hohenems.