Isaac Metzger was born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany in 1824. He settled in Baltimore and sold dry goods and worked for years for a wholesale clothing firm, Philip Herzberg & Co. In 1851, he married Fannie Hecht and they had at least two children, Sarah and Isaac, Jr. In 1871, Sarah married David Wiesenfeld, son of Moses and Betsy Wiesenfeld at the Orthodox Lloyd Street Synagogue in Baltimore.