Friedrich Münch
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Friedrich Münch (June 25, 1799; Niedergemünden, Germany – 1881 Augusta, Missouri) was a German-American minister, winegrower, politician, author.
He studied theology at the University of Gießen, Germany, from 1816 to 1819. Here he got in contact to the brothers Follen (August, Karl and Paul, who had founded a democratic and republican students movement, soon to get outlawed. He befriended himself with the youngest brother, Paul Follen, who in 1825 married his sister Maria.
Naturalist Gottfried Duden, a German attorney, settled on the North side of the Missouri River along Lake Creek in 1824. He was investigating the possibilities of settlement in the area by his countrymen. In 1827 he returned to Germany which he felt was overpopulated. There he published a glowing Eine Reise zu den westlichen Staaten Nordamerika's ("A Journey to the Western states of North America") in 1829.
The romantic description of the free life in the US motivated the Protestant minister Friedrich Münch and the attorney Paul Follen to found 1833 the Gießener Auswanderungsgesellschaft ("Gießen Emigration Society"). Both had participated in the outlawed republican and democratic movements in Germany in the wake of the French July Revolution of 1832. As there was no immediate hope for success, they intented to establish a "new and free Germany in the great North American Republic" to serve as model for a future German republic.
Already in 1834 they led 500 German settlers into Missouri. They soon realised that the plan for a separate federal state would remain an Utopia. They settled in the German populated Dutzow in Warren County, Missouri not far from the former farm of Gottfried Duden.
In 1859 he founded with his brother Georg the Mount Pleasant Winery in Augusta, Missouri. They chose this area because it reminded them of their home country Germany.
As an enterprising former preacher, he played a notable role in Missouri politics as a fierce opponent of slavery. He campaigned together with Friedrich Hecker, a former German revolutionist who had immigrated to the US after the failure of the 1848/9 democratic movement in Germany. He served in Missouri’s legislature during the Civil War and helped start the Missouri wine industry. He wrote articles for the American and German press, using as pen name Far West.
His descendants were held in high esteem in the St. Louis region. One of his sons was with the first volunteers in the Civil War and died in the Battle of Wilson's Creek under the command of Franz Sigel, a former officer in the German 1848 revolution. On of his daughters, Emilie, married Dr. William Follenius, the son of his old friend Paul Follen.
[edit] References
- Paul Follen und Friedrich Münch: Aufforderung und Erklärung in Betreff einer Auswanderung im Großen aus Teutschland in die nordamerikanischen Freistaate.
- A Treatise on Religion and Christianity, Orthodoxy and Rationalism.
- American Grape Culture, 1859
- Der Staat Missouri, geschildert mit besonderer Rücksicht auf teutsche Einwanderung, 1859
- School for American grape culture: brief but thorough and practical guide to the laying out of vineyards, the treatment of vines, and the production of wine and North America., St. Louis 1865
- Amerikanische Weinbauschule, St. Louis 1877
- Geisteslehre für die heranreisende Jugend zum Gebrauche für Lehrer höhere Lehranstalten : ein Buch für Lehrer und Schüler und alle Freunde des freien Denkens, St. Louis, 1872
- Friedrich Münch (Hg.): Erinnerungen aus Deutschlands trübster Zeit, dargestellt in den Lebensbildern von Karl Follen, Paul Follen und Friedrich Münch, St. Louis (Missouri) und Neustadt a.d. Haardt 1873.
- Fiedrich Münch: Gesammelte Schriften, 1902, St. Louis
