Rabbi, Tzemach Tzedek Congregation, 2120 E. Fairmount Avenue
Born: 3/20/1893 (3 Nisan, 5653)
Died: March 1, 1952 (4 Adar, 5712)
Rabbi Avrohom Elya Axelrod was born the oldest of five children on 3 Nisan, 5653 (March 20, 1893), in Kobylnik, today in Poland. He was sent to the central yeshiva in Lubavitch in 1906 and his parents immigrated to American in 1907. He remained in yeshiva for 14 years. He married Bracha Nesha Lieberman on April 4, 1821.
The Rebbe Rayatz sent R’ Axelrod to Ohio to join his family in 1924, among the first, if not the first, shaliach sent to America by the Rebbe. R’ Axelrod moved to Baltimore several months later.
Baltimore by that time was flush with thousands of new Eastern European immigrants to a city which was strongly established as a German Jewish city for 7 decades or more.
The Tzemach Tzedek Nusach Ari Congregation (organized in 1913) was opened on March 16, 1924 at 2120 E. Fairmount Ave. and used at least until 1956, when it merged with Shomrei Hadath (founded 1890s). The shul eventually would become Bais Lubavitch in Park Heights (now at 3402 Clarks Lane).
Rabbi Axelrod would be elected as rabbi of Tzemach Tzedek in 1924.
The Rebbe, R’ Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the 6th Lubavitch Rebbe, AKA the Friediker Rebbe, would visit Baltimore in January 1930, and would say a ma’amer on the occasion of the Alter Rebbe’s (R’ Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the Baal HaTanya, and first Rebbe’s) yahrzeit of 24 Teves.
Rabbi Axelrod passed away on March 1, 1952, 4 Adar, 5712.
He is buried in German Hill Road Jewish Cemetery. At his funeral, Rabbi Michoel Forshlager, an accomplished Torah scholar and rabbi in Baltimore at the time, proclaimed, “Baltimore has lost her rabbi.”
When the great Rabbi Avigdor Miller (born and raised in Baltimore) was asked about his opinion of Lubavitchers, he answered the following: “Well, I must have a good opinion of them because one of my rebbis [Rav Avraham Eliyahu Axelrod z”l] was a Lubavitcher. They sent me to him when I was a poor boy and I was supposed to pay him. But we couldn’t afford it – I never gave him even a nickel. And anyhow he learned a whole year and a whole Mesichta Kesubos with me for nothing. Then we made a siyum in the Nusach Ari Shul in that city; a siyum – just he and I with the people of the shul at minyan. And so I look back with affection on him. He was my rebbi. He used to tell me stories because he was a real Lubavitcher. He came from Lubavitch; he learned in Lubavitch for sixteen years.” (June, 1983)
Some info sourced from:
Baltimore Jewish History 
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