Ohio History Journal

ROBERT E. CAZDEN

 

 

The German Book Trade

In Ohio Before 1848

 

 

 

 

In the summer of 1796 Jonathan Zane and his brothers, as part payment for lands

received from the United States Government, began to hew a pack trail from the

Ohio River at Wheeling to the later site of New Lancaster, Ohio, through to Chilli-

cothe and on to a point opposite Maysville, Kentucky on the Ohio River. For a long

while this trail, called Zane's Trace, was the only route connecting Kentucky with

the East; along it trod many German farming families on their way from Pennsyl-

vania, Virginia, and Maryland to Lancaster (the "New" was soon dropped) and sur-

rounding Fairfield County. Some Germans were drawn to Cincinnati and Hamilton

County, but until the 1830's their numbers were not large. The first organized settle-

ment of Germans in Ohio, and one of the earliest white settlements in the Miami

Valley, dates back to 1798 when Christian Waldsmith (Waldschmidt), from Gen-

genbach in the Black Forest region, led a small group of German pietists to the

banks of the Little Miami some twenty miles from Cincinnati. In 1810 Waldsmith

built the second paper mill in Ohio.1

As the rest of Ohio was opened for settlement, thousands of Germans made their

homes in the so-called backbone counties, especially Columbiana, Stark, Wayne,

Tuscarawas, and Holmes. Place names that evoked the Old Country abounded:

Berlin, Wirtemberg, Saxon, Hanover, Dresden, Osnaburg, Frankfurt, Spires, and

Potsdam. Singly and in groups the German emigrants ventured westward. Some

German communitarian colonies were also founded, notably those at Zoar in Tus-

carawas County, in 1817, and the now forgotten Teutonia whose guiding spirit was

Peter Kaufmann. Both were directly inspired by Father Rapp's successful experi-

ments at Harmony, New Harmony, and Economy.

The early German settlers remained within the orbit of the Pennsylvania-German

book trade obtaining needed books from peddlers, itinerant ministers, and by sub-

scription. Perusal of contemporary subscription lists does bring such a general-

ization alive. A Reading, Pennsylvania, printing of Gerhard Tersteegen's Geistliche

Brosamen dating from 1807 contains the names of twelve subscribers residing in

Pleasant, Fairfield County near Lancaster. In 1819, Johann Baer of Lancaster,

 

 

 

1. Dard Hunter, Papermaking in Pioneer America (Philadelphia, 1952), 110-116.

 

Mr. Cazden is Associate Professor, College of Library Science, University of Kentucky.

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58                                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

Pennsylvania, was able to round up 361 Ohio subscribers for his German Bible.² De-

mand for German books on the frontier was limited until more educated immi-

grants arrived from Europe, resulting in the growth of German populations large

enough to support a local retail book trade in trading centers like Cincinnati,

Canton, and Columbus.

Perhaps the three earliest German publications in Ohio were an almanac and two

newspapers. On October 6, 1807, the Cincinnati newspaper Liberty Hall and Cincin-

nati Mercury announced publication of a German almanac: Teutscher Calender auf

1808, by Robert Stubbs, rendered into German by Edward H. Stall, published by

the newspaper's owner and editor, John W. Browne.³ Although there are conflicting

reports as to date, it was probably in 1807 when Der Ohio Adler, a newspaper writ-

ten in the Pennsylvania-German dialect, began publication in Lancaster, Ohio. The

early history of Der Ohio Adler, and of The Ohio Eagle its English language counter-

part, is complicated and largely hypothetical.⁴ Many old issues of the papers were

destroyed when the office burned in 1844; no copies of either paper are known to be

extant prior to 1812. The other German language paper was established in Decem-

ber 1808 in New Lisbon, Columbiana County, Ohio, by William D. Lepper. This

small German weekly, Der Patriot am Ohio, however, found little support, and its

 

 

2. Gerhard Tersteegen, Geistliche Brosamen, von des Herrn Tisch gefallen . . . Erste amerikanische

Auflage, Erster Band [all published] (Reading: Johann Ritter und Companie, 1807). This first and only

volume was issued in two parts, the second dated February 1808. The subscribers from Ohio were: Lud-

wig and Christian Banse, Adam Ebright, Conrad Fehder, Jacob Fetter, Friedrich Herman, Abraham He-

stand, Jacob Knepper, Philip Paul, John Pontius, Nicolaus Radenbach, and John Schiessler. For Johann

Baer, see The Report: A Journal of German American History, published by the Society for the History of

the Germans in Maryland, XXXV (1972), 57.

3. A German version of Browne's Western Calendar, or the Cincinnati Almanac for 1808; a copy of the

English version is in The Ohio Historical Society. There is no copy of the German almanac known. Mil-

ton Drake, Almanacs of the United States (New York, 1962), II, 871. It should be made clear at this point

that the scope and purpose of this paper preclude any attempt at listing all German-language Ohio im-

prints prior to 1848. Only exemplary or historically significant items are cited in full.

4. The following secondary, and contradictory, sources may be consulted for information on the early

history of these two Lancaster newspapers: Hervey Scott, A Complete History of Fairfield County, Ohio,

1795-1876 (Columbus, 1877); A. A. Graham, History of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Ohio: Their Past

and Present (Chicago, 1883); C. M. L. Wiseman, Centennial History of Lancaster Ohio and Lancaster

People, 1898 (Lancaster, O., 1898); Heinrich A. Rattermann, "Deutsch-Amerikanische Journalismus und

seine Verbreitung von 1800 bis zur Einwanderung der Sogenannten 'Dreissiger,'" Deutsch-Amerika-

nische Geschichtsblatter, XII (1912); Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American News-

papers: 1690-1820 (Worcester, 1947), 11: Karl J. R. Arndt and May E. Olson. German-American News-

papers and Periodicals: 1732-1955, 2nd rev. ed. (New York, 1965).

Both Scott (p. 57) and Graham (Pt. III. p. 168) date the beginning of Der Ohio Adler in 1807 and list its

first editor as "Jacob D. Detrich"; both also list the beginning of The Ohio Eagle from 1809, and say that

both papers were taken over by Edward Shaeffer (Shafer) sometime around 1812. Wiseman, however (p.

103), gives Shaeffer as the first editor of the Adler and credits "Jacob D. Deitrick" with starting the Eagle

in 1812. All sources agree that John Herman took over publication of both papers sometime in 1816 and

continued as editor/publisher perhaps as late as 1827 (Arndt and Olson. p. 484). Arndt and Olson list

Herman's successor as "Jakob Smith [or Schmidt]" without giving any date; Phillipp Kastner and Kon-

stantin Sprenger are listed from 1835-1840. Although there is no direct evidence, it seems probable that

both papers continued under single management either until after John Herman left the paper (see ac-

counts in Scott, Graham, and Wiseman) or until 1840 after Kastner and Sprenger left (Arndt and Olson,

p. 484) when Der Ohio Adler, presumably, ceased publication. Rattermann (p. 288) attributes the found-

ing of the Adler to Joseph Carpenter and Jacob Green in 1807, and both Brigham and Arndt and Olson

repeat this assertion. Rattermann states that Carpenter was a descendant of the Lancaster. Ohio Carpen-

ters (Zimmermanns) and had been a typesetter and printer for William Maxwell, editor of the Centinel of

the North-Western Territory in Cincinnati. Most other sources agree that Joseph Carpenter was a New

Englander from Massachusetts. As of now, there is no evidence to support Joseph Carpenter's German

ancestry, his presence in Lancaster, Ohio, his connection with Der Ohio Adler, or with the Centinel.

• 2
 

publisher, a young Alsatian immigrant, soon transformed it into an English language paper.5   Lancaster The first editor of Der Ohio Adler and The Ohio Eagle about whom anything defi- nite is known was Jacob D. Dietrick (1778-1838). He was born of German immi- grant parents in Philadelphia, was a bookseller, printer and editor with experience in both Maryland and Virginia. He was working in Staunton, Virginia as editor of the Republican papers, Staunton Eagle and Der Deutsche Virginier Adler, when he accepted the call to take over the temporarily moribund Ohio Eagle and Adler. Dietrick's direct association with the Lancaster paper lasted only a few years, for in 1814 he left the newspaper business to devote himself to his general store and to   5. Graham, History of Fairfield and Perry Counties, Pt. III, 169; Brigham, American Newspapers, 11, 804, 812.

• 3
 

public life. An appointment as postmaster in 1814 was followed by his election as a justice of the peace in 1819. He was holding both posts at least as late as 1820. On April 6, 1818 he was elected clerk of Hocking Township. He also served for fourteen years as associate judge of the court of common pleas.6 Dietrick was succeeded by Edward Shaeffer (Eduard Schaffer), a printer from Frankfurt am Main. Not enough is known to accurately chart Shaeffer's early ca- reer, but the following reconstruction is offered. Shaeffer first came to America in 1814 and sometime that year settled in Lancaster, Ohio as printer of the Adler. In 1816 he published a hymnal for the United Brethren in Christ-Herzens Opfer, eine Sammlung geistreicher Lieder.7 More than 350 pages in length, it was the first sub- stantial German book printed in Ohio and probably has priority over John Her- man's twenty-four page brochure dated the same year (see below). The Lancaster Volksfreund (Pa.) of May 7, 1816 reported that Shaeffer was planning a trip to Ger- many that year; and later in 1816 John Herman took on the responsibility of print- ing the Adler. During February and March 1817, however, Shaeffer was back in Lancaster, Ohio, but in a few months he returned to Europe once more. A letter to Friederich Rapp in New Harmony, Indiana, written by Shaeffer from Frankfurt am Main and dated January 15, 1818, confirms that Shaeffer did make two voyages to Europe, in 1816 and in 1817. The letter also conveys Shaeffer's intention of return- ing to the United States in the spring of 1818. According to Oswald Seidensticker, Shaeffer landed with "a complete outfit for his business"; but Seidensticker's further     6. See Klaus G. Wust, "The English and German Printing Office: Bilingual Printers in Maryland and Virginia," Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, Report, XXXII (1966), 33-34. 7. See Historical Records Survey, Ohio, A Checklist of Ohio Imprints 1796-1828 (Columbus. 0., 1941). 107.

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German Book Trade                                                                      61

 

statement that in 1819 Shaeffer went to New York to publish Der deutsche Freund,

the city's first German-language newspaper, is incorrect.8

John Herman took on the task of publishing the Adler and Eagle late in 1816 and

remained in Lancaster for a good many years. His first Lancaster imprint was the

Verrichtungen der 6ten Spezial Conferenz der Evangelisch-Lutherische Prediger im

Staat Ohio und dem westlichen Theil von Pennsylvanien (1816). Most of his later Ger-

man imprints were almanacs (Drake records editions for 1818, 1819, and 1820).9 The

details of Jakob Smith's association with the Ohio Adler are gleaned from several of

Rattermann's historical essays. Smith (originally Schmidt) was a talented journalist

and not a practicing printer, yet another victim of political harassment in Europe

who came to America in the 1820's. He became editor of the Adler and Eagle in

1824 or possibly a few years later-Rattermann's dates are not consistent-and wrote

well in both languages. Smith was an ardent Jacksonian and because of his lack of

hair earned the soubriquet, "The Democratic Bald Eagle of Lancaster, Ohio." If in-

deed Smith were campaigning for Jackson in 1824, it would go a long way to ex-

plain the large Jackson vote delivered by the Ohio Germans.10 The "Bald Eagle of

Lancaster," moved to Pittsburgh in 1835 to become editor of the influential Adler

des Westens. With the departure of Smith, Der Ohio Adler continued only until

1840, under the direction of Phillipp Kastner and Konstantin Sprenger.11

 

Canton

The first phase of German settlement in the Ohio Valley, that is to 1820, was al-

most entirely an internal migration from eastern states. Heinz Kloss is correct to em-

phasize the community qualities of the Pennsylvania migration, and he documents

 

 

 

8. For Shaeffer's presence in Lancaster in 1817, see the Ohio Eagle, February 13, 27, and March 27,

1817. Shaeffer's letter to Rapp is in the Harmony Society Archives of the Pennsylvania Historical and

Museum Commission. An English translation, Schaeffer to Friedrich Rapp, January 15, 1818, in A Docu-

mentary History of the Indiana Decade of the Harmony Society 1814-1824, Vol. I, 1814-1819 compiled

and edited by Karl J. R. Arndt (Indianapolis, 1975), 449. Oswald Seidensticker, who credited Rattermann

as his source, named Edward Schaeffer as publisher of Der deutsche Freund (New York); The First Cen-

tury of German Printing in America 1728-1830 . . . (Philadelphia, 1893), 208. But Rattermann later

changed his own views and concluded in 1912 that Rev. Friedrich Christian Schaeffer was the actual pub-

lisher. "Der Deutsch-Amerikanische Journalismus," 285. The Port Folio (Philadelphia), December 8,

1819, p. 519 confirmed this. See also Heinz Kloss, Um die Einigung des Deutschamerikanertums . . . (Ber-

lin, 1937), 129, 131. Brigham cites Seidensticker's ascription to Edward Schaeffer but also refers to an is-

sue of the Baltimore American that mentioned Rev. F. C. Schaeffer as responsible for the newspaper.

Carl Wittke in The German-Language Press in America (Lexington, Ky., 1957), 44, relied on Seiden-

sticher's account. A new error appeared in Karl J. R. Arndt and May E. Olson, German-American News-

papers, 603. Here Der deutsche Freund is listed as a York, Pa. newspaper, but the Seidensticker and Brig-

ham references cited by Arndt and Olson pertain to the New York paper. A possible source for this error is

a speech given by Rattermann on May 26, 1880, reprinted in his Gesammelte A usgewahlte Werke (Cincin-

nati, 1906-1914), XVI, 223-252. In that speech Rattermann said that Edward Shaeffer published Der

deutsche Freund in York, Pa., in 1816, a statement he soon retracted.

9. Drake, Almanacs of the United States, II, 873-875.

10. In a recent study of this election, Donald J. Ratcliffe concluded: "Why Jackson attracted the sup-

port of the 'Pennsylvania Dutch' in 1824 remains a mystery." In his "The Role of Voters and Issues in

Party Formation: Ohio, 1824," The Journal of American History, LIX (March 1973), 863.

11. On Smith see Rattermann, "Deutsch-Amerikanischer Journalismus," 289 (which places Smith in

Ohio by 1824); Rattermann, Gesammelte ausgewahlte Werke, X, 425-432; and XI, 458-459. Jakob

Smith's parody of Goethe's "Mignon's Lied" ("Mignon's Song") that begins-"Kennt ihr das Land, wo

frei die Meinung ist, / Kein Zensor je der Kuhnheit Worte misst .. ."-first appeared in Der Ohio Adler.

A reprint may be found in Der deutsche Pionier, XVI (February 1885), 417-418. See also, Arndt and Ol-

son, German-American Newspapers, 484.

• 5
 

the tenacity of the "Pennsilfaanische" dialect in Stark, Tuscarawas, and Montgom- ery counties well into the twentieth century.12 European Germans who began the trek to Ohio in the 1820's, their number swelling dramatically during the 1830's and 1840's, make up the second phase of settlement, which by its numerical superiority has obscured the original Pennsylvania-German underlay. During both stages the backbone region of Ohio, a band some fifty miles wide extending west from Pitts- burgh across much of the state, continued to attract many immigrants. At the heart of this region lay Stark County and its flourishing county seat of Canton, for some years the most important German city in eastern Ohio, Canton, which was laid out in 1805, was older by four years than Stark County itself, and the original plat for the town was recorded in the then nearest county seat of New Lisbon, Columbiana County. Columbiana was on the Pennsylvania border and naturally counted as       12. Heinz Kloss, Das Volksgruppenrecht in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika (Essen, 1940-1942), I, 429.

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German Book Trade                                                                  63

 

early as 1808 a Pennsylvania-German population of some size.

Another German community only five miles from Canton was Osnaburg, now

East Canton, the second village laid out in Stark County, and for a time Canton's

rival for county seat. "I have never again in the West found a town in which so

much German was spoken as in Osnaburg," wrote the well traveled minister, Jo-

hann Gottfried Buttner in 1844.¹³ Though much smaller than its neighbor, Osnaburg

claimed one of the most prominent German pioneers in the area, Christian Kountze

(or Kunze) a journeyman weaver from Burgstadt, Saxony, who in 1820 arrived with

three Heller in his pocket and parlayed them into a million dollar fortune. After a

few hard years as a peddler in Pennsylvania-with, as he wrote his parents, "a

wooden chest on my back and a bundle under my arm, wandering from one farm-

house to another, often bent over with the load, sweating from the hundred pound

burden" 14--he finally bought a horse, and in 1824 settled permanently in Osnaburg,

opening that town's first general store. Johann Gottfried Buttner, who served as pas-

tor of the German Reformed Church in Osnaburg from September 1837 to Septem-

ber 1838 lodged with Kountze and had this to say of his host: "Christian [Kountze]

... is by no means an uncultured man, and this culture he had gotten for himself.

His library, which he amassed gradually, reflects the sensitivity of its owner. We see

in him what can become of a man if he so desires." 15

The trade in German books was first cultivated in Canton by the bookbinder Ja-

cob Sala in 1812 or 1813. He occupied a small cabin at the corner of Tuscarawas

and Walnut streets where he added to his bindery the town's first drug store. Two of

his sons, Johann and Solomon, were printers who at different times worked with

their father in Canton, but there is no evidence that the elder Sala did any printing

before 1821. At the very end of 1820, Canton's first German newspaper appeared,

the weekly Westliche Beobachter und Stark, Tuscarawas, und Columbiana Caunties

Anzeiger (December 1820-1826). Its publisher and editor was former editor of Der

Ohio Adler, Edward Shaeffer. From 1821 to 1824 the Sala family and Edward

Shaeffer in various combinations printed at least six books,¹⁶ five in German, one in

English:

1. Der Psalter des Konigs und Propheten Davids . . (Canton, O.: Gedruckt bey

Schaffer und Sala, 1821), 233 pp.

 

 

 

13. Die Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika: Mein Aufenthalt und meine Reisen in denselben, vom

Jahre 1834 bis 1841 (Hamburg, 1844), II, 225. Translated by the author.

14. In a letter from Kountze to his family dated Osnaburg, December 30, 1824, printed in K. E. Rich-

ter, ed., Stimmen aus Amerika: Gesammelt und herausgegeben zu Nutz und Frommen fur Auswanderungs-

lustige (Zwickau, 1833), 7. Further on, Kountze observed: "It is my pleasure to speak German most of

the time since German here has not yet died out. However, I must write my letters and keep my accounts

in English; because of that my written German is not as fluent as before. I live in a small village or town

of around fifteen houses .... This area twenty years ago was not yet settled, except by Indians." Trans-

lated by the author. On Kountze see also Edward Thornton Heald, The Stark County Story (Canton, O.,

1949), I, 14.

15. Johann Gottfried Buttner, Die Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-Amerika .. , II, 225. Translated by

the author.

16. Entries 1-5, taken directly from Charles Donald Missar, "A Checklist of Ohio Imprints from 1821

to 1825 with a Historical Introduction" (unpublished M.S. thesis, Catholic University of America, 1960),

46, 54, 55, 71, 109. A reference to The Christian's Duty (not in Missar), with a reproduction of the title

page, appears in Robert G. Hayman (bookseller), Catalogue, 53 (Carey, 0., 1973), 65. The first edition of

this German Baptist songbook was published in Germantown, Pa., in 1791. On Jacob Sala see Johann

Raber, "Ruckerinnerungen an die fruhe Gechichte [sic] von Stark County und seine altesten grosseren

Stadte." Der  deutsche Pionier, III (September 1871), 219.

• 7
 

2. Das Kleine Lust-Gartlein, oder schone auserlesener [sic] Gebter [sic] und Lieder, zum Gebrauch der Jugend, sowohl in der Schule als zu Hause (Canton, O.: Gedruckt bey Jacob Sala u. Sohn, 1821), 96 pp. 3. Das Kleine Lust-Gartlein ... (Canton, O.: Gedruckt bey Jacob Sala, 1824), 112 PP. 4. Das neu eingerichtete Evangelisch-Lutherische Gesangbuch . . .(Canton, O.: Gedruckt bey Schaffer und Sala, 1821), 249 pp. 5. Der Kleine Catechismus des seligen D. Martin Luthers . . .(Canton, O.: Gedruckt bey Jacob Sala, 1822), 130 pp. 6. The Christian's Duty: Exhibited in a Series of Hymns... Fourth Edition (Can- ton, 0.: Printed by Jacob & Solomon Sala, 1822), 481 pp. Shaeffer also published an almanac, first edition 1821, written by Charles F. Egel-

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German Book Trade                                                                   65

 

mann. Drake in his Almanacs of the United States records editions in German and

English for 1823, 1824, and 1826.17

Solomon Sala departed from Canton in late 1822 or early 1823 and worked

briefly with that charismatic preacher Alexander Campbell at Buffaloe Creek (later

Bethany), in what is now West Virginia, from late 1823 through 1824, after which he

ran a shop in Wellsburg, Virginia, for a few years before returning to Ohio. His

brother Johann also left the family business for a short time and is known to have

been printing in Wooster, Ohio, in 1826, though later that year he was back in Can-

ton.18 Here he made the acquaintance of Henry Kurtz (1796-1874), Lutheran pastor,

advocate ofcommunitarianism, and finally an elder in the German Baptist Brethren

or Dunkers (now Church of the Brethren). Kurtz had moved to Ohio in 1827 and

during that year the second volume of his communitarian periodical Der Friedens-

bote von Concordia [The Peace Messenger of Concordia] was printed in Canton by

Johann Sala. The first volume had appeared under the title Das Wiedergefundene

Paradies [Paradise Regained] in Pittsburgh in 1825 and 1826. A Canton edition of

Die Kleine Lieder-Sammlung, a songbook originally published in Hagerstown,

Maryland, was printed for Kurtz in 1829, this time by Solomon Sala. Several years

later, Kurtz obtained his own press probably from the Sala family, and working out

of Osnaburg produced a small number of German books: a primer that went

through several editions, two volumes for the Mennonites,¹⁹ a sixty-page medical

guide-Americanische Noth-und Hulfs-Buchlein . . . (1837) and a short lived news-

paper, Das Wochenblatt (1833-1834).20

Turning our attention once again to the situation in Canton, we find that Edward

Shaeffer had already left that town in July of 1826. But before his departure he sold

Der Westliche Beobachter und Stark und Wayne Caunties Anzeiger to Johann Sala

and the Sala family used this German newspaper to bolster its rudimentary book

business.²¹ The issue of December 6, 1826 displayed this notice:

To the Germans. Now is your opportunity. German books. Jacob Sala and Co. in addition to

 

 

17. The almanac was titled Der neue fur den Staat von Ohio eingerichtete Calender. ... Author of the

1826 edition was William Lusk. Drake, Almanacs of the United States. II, 877-878.

18. Johann Sala reportedly established the Wooster Correspondent in 1826, a German newspaper that

"died in the very agonies of its birth." See Benjamin Douglas, History of Wayne County, Ohio . . . (In-

dianapolis, 1878), 358. The only German book printed in Wooster by Johann Sala was Die ernsthafte

Christenpflicht ... (1826), a Mennonite prayerbook. Solomon Sala's manuscript "Day Book" is preserved

in the American Antiquarian Society Library; see the long description by Ernest Wessen (bookseller), in

Midland Notes (catalog of Midland Rare Book Company, Mansfield, 0.), 98 [1966], item no. 86: "Day-

book. Solomon Sala. (Mss.) 15 pages of an account book of 132 p. ... Spring of 1823 to January 1, 1825."

The first fifteen pages cover Sala's work with Campbell at Buffaloe Creek, with whom he apparently

parted company on January 1, 1825. In addition, the manuscript contains the record of Sala's stay at

Wellsburg, and his activities in Canton beginning November 11, 1828. The manuscript concludes with the

accounts of Peter Kaufmann's printing business July 18, 1831-1834. On Solomon Sala's Buffaloe Creek

imprints, which were all in English, consult Delf Norona and Charles Shetler, West Virginia Imprints,

1790-1863 (Moundsville, W. Va., 1958), item nos. 305-307, 374, 1170, 1390.

19. A selection from the works of Menno Simons, Zeugnisse der Wahrheit (1833) and a Mennonite

prayerbook: Kleines Hand-Buechlein darinnen Morgen-und Abend-Gebeter . . enthalten sind (1835). See

Harold S. Bender, Two Centuries of American Mennonite Literature (Goshen, Indiana, 1929), 14-15.

20. Kurtz also published a bilingual monthly from Columbiana County called Testimonies of Truth or

Zeugnisse der Wahrheit (1836-1837); only the first two issues are extant. See Donald F. Durnbaugh,

"Henry Kurtz: Man of the Book," Ohio History, LXXVI (Summer 1967), 114-131, 173-176.

21. Shaeffer went to Germantown in Montgomery County, Ohio, attracted by a clique of intellectuals

who had settled there. In Germantown he published the National Zeitung der Deutschen until 1833 when

he fell victim to cholera. Rattermann, "Der Deutsch-Amerikanische Journalismus," 301.

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66                                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

its old stock has just received the following books, namely [among others]:22

Johann Hubners Allgemeine Geographie aller der Welt-Theilen

Die Heilige Bibeln

Psaltern

Rinaldo Rinaldini [by Christian August Vulpius]

Johann M[ichael] Hahn's Schriften

Das Evangelium Nicodemi

[Johann Heinrich Jung-] Stillings Geschichte Florentin von Fahlendorn

Schellsburger Allgemeines Vieharznevbuch

Joseph Funk's Noten Bucher

The growing German population enticed other booksellers. A certain J. Tarry

opened a new store in Canton in 1828, combining a bindery with a "general assort-

ment of German and English school books." Above all, there was the redoubtable

Johann George Ritter of Philadelphia (formerly of Gmund) who emigrated to the

United States in 1824. Not only did he advertise his extensive stock in the local Can-

ton paper, but he made frequent trips with horse and wagon throughout the state of

Ohio until his death from pleurisy in 1840, a lamentable end brought about by a fall

from his wagon near Lancaster, Ohio, in whose German cemetery he is buried.

"During the 1870's," wrote Rattermann, "[I] found in various parts of Ohio many

German books among them Goethe's, Schiller's, Wieland's, Klopstock's, Herder's,

Jean Paul's, which bore the bookseller's ticket of Ritter of Philadelphia." 23

Within two years Johann Sala decided to sell the Westlicher Beobachter-he an-

nounced this in the issue of January 30, 1828-but instead took on his brother Solo-

mon as partner. In April 1829 the Sala brothers started a new German newspaper in

Canton, the Vaterlandsfreund und Westliche Beobachter, edited until 1830 by the

German political refugee Dr. Daniel Christian Ludolph Lehmus.²⁴ By 1830 Solomon

Sala became sole publisher of this newspaper. Very soon, however, ownership of the

Sala establishment passed into the hands of a young man named Peter Kaufmann.

The personal and business papers of this remarkable Ohio German fill seventeen

 

 

 

 

22. Translated by the author. Some of these were certainly American imprints. Joseph Funk, Die Allge-

mein nuetzliche Choral Music (Harrisonburg, Va.: Laurentz Wartmann, 1816); Johann Nicolaus

Rohlwes, Allgemeines Vieharzneibuch (Schellsburg, Pa.: Friedrich Goeb, 1823), a general treatise on vet-

erinary medicine. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus was exceedingly popular among the

Pennsylvania-Germans; in 1819 two German editions were published in Pennsylvania, one in Reading,

the other in Harrisburg. (See Fig. 38.) The Story of Florentin von Fahlendorn, first edition Mannheim

1781-1783, was one of the lesser works of Jung-Stilling, a writer much loved by German-American pi-

etists. Rinaldo Rinaldini, The Robber Captain, first edition Leipzig 1798, was probably the most popular of

the "noble robber" novels then in fashion. The author was Goethe's brother-in-law. Johann Michael

Hahn, whose Schriften were published in Tubingen, 1820 in two volumes, was a pietist leader in Wur-

temberg like his contemporary, George Rapp.

23. Tarry's notice appeared in the Westlicher Beobachter, December 5, 1828. The quotation on Ritter is

from Rattermann, "Ein Pionier der deutschen Journalistik in den Vereinigten Staaten: Johann Georg

Ritter," Der deutsche Pionier, XVI (March 1885), 474, translated by the author. Ritter's announcement in

the Westlicher Beobachter of May 23, 1827 included among other items: Carl Wilhelm Ammon, Taschen-

buch fur Herrschaften und Kutscher [Pocketbook for Masters and Coachmen]; Carl Awerill, Kurze Ab-

handlung der Chirurgie [Brief Treatise on Surgery] (1824); and a novel, Amalie Mansfield oder der seltenen

Opfer reiner Liebe.

24. The Westlicher Beobachter of September 26, 1828 names Lehmus as the editor of the proposed

Vaterlandsfreund und Westliche Beobachter. He had been editor of Edward Shaeffer's National Zeitung

der Deutschen in Germantown, Ohio. See Rattermann, "Die Deutsch-Amerikanische Journalismus,"

291, 299.

• 10
 

German Book Trade                                                                67

 

boxes at the Ohio Historical Society and could certainly support a full fledged biog-

raphy. All that we have so far, however, is a description of the collection with a bio-

graphical foreword furnished by Ernest Wessen, the bookseller from whom the orig-

inal collection was purchased, and the biographical portions of Loyd Easton's study

of Kaufmann's philosophy, in turn drawn largely from the Wessen sketch.25

Peter Kaufmann was born in Munster-Mayfeld in 1800 of a French mother and a

German father, by profession a cavalry officer. After leaving the Gymnasium at Co-

burg, the young man spent two years at the University of Berlin where presumably

he was first exposed to Hegelian philosophy.²⁶ By 1820 Kaufmann was in Phila-

delphia and became part owner of a tobacconist's shop. The business shortly failed

and Kaufmann moved from Philadelphia to Reading, Pennsylvania. In 1823 he

published his first book in Latin entitled Elogium Petri Magni, Russorum Impera-

toris, no copy of which is known. In the same year he completed his ministerial stud-

ies. Although he was never ordained, he retained a lifelong penchant for speculative

philosophy, first manifested in a German work, Betrachtung uber den Menschen,

that Conrad Zentler of Philadelphia published in 1823 and reprinted in 1824 and

1825. This youthful treatise, Easton claims, is written in the spirit of Christian per-

fectionism, which led Kaufmann quite naturally down the road of social reform. We

know that Kaufmann and Robert Smith opened this country's first Labour-for-La-

bour store in Philadelphia early in 1824. Since Robert Owen was in Philadelphia

during 1824 and twice had visited Kaufmann's close friend Morris Longstreth,27 a

direct Owenite influence is conceivable, though Easton argues against it. Seeking

new experiences, Kaufmann in 1826 joined the Rappists at Economy, Pennsylvania

as a teacher of languages, and his short tenure there inspired him to lead a small

group of Germans into Ohio to found their own community. This communist colony

was built in Petersburg, Columbiana County by the Society of United Germans at

Teutonia and its constitution was drawn up by Kaufmann, Solomon Sala, and Mi-

chael Lenz. Karl J. R. Arndt treats the Teutonians largely as dissidents from Rapp's

Harmony Society; in fact the interrelationship of the Rappists, the schismatic fol-

lowers of Count De Leon at Phillipsburg, and the Teutonians is yet to be worked

out in detail.²⁸

Peter Kaufmann moved permanently to Canton in 1831 and contracted with

Solomon Sala, the publisher of the Vaterlandsfreund und Westliche Beobachter to act

as "Editor and Translator," for a "Jackson German Newspaper." By October 1831

 

 

 

 

25. "Peter Kaufmann: An Inventory of His Papers in The Ohio Historical Society" (1968), unpublished

inventory. Hereafter cited as "Kaufmann Inventory:" Loyd David Easton, Hegel's First American Follow-

ers (Athens, Ohio, 1966), 95-122. The older accounts of Raber and Rattermann, "Der Deutsch-Amerika-

nische Journalismus," 291-297, have also been used.

26. Rattermann asserted that Kaufmann "attended especially the lectures of Hegel." "Der Deutsch-

Amerikanische Journalismus," 291. Rattermann's biographical notes are based in part on personal

knowledge of Kaufmann (p. 296) and an interview with his widow in September 1876.

27. Easton, Hegel's Followers, 100. Usually cited as the first such enterprise in the United States, Josiah

Warren's "Time Store" in Cincinnati was founded in 1827, three years after Kaufmann and Smith's

Philadelphia venture. Some labels for products made and sold by the Labour for Labour Association in

Philadelphia are reproduced in Midland Notes, 63 [1956], item no. 134.

28. Karl J. R. Arndt, George Rapp's Harmony Society 1785-1874 (Rutherford, N.J., 1972), 358-378.

While at Teutonia, Kaufmann and Sala supposedly published a weekly paper, The Herald of a Better

Time [Der Herold einer bessere Zeit] in both English and German editions. A printed prospectus dated

November 1827 is preserved among the Kaufmann Papers, Box 2.

• 11
 

68                                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

Kaufmann had apparently taken control of the paper and printing establishment, to

which he later added a circulating library.²⁹ After operating his business alone for

some years, Kaufmann in 1838 joined Henry Hawrecht and Charles J. Wink in a

new partnership to publish the Vaterlandsfreund und Geist der Zeit, as the paper was

then called, and run the bookstore. A detailed statement of the accounts of Peter

Kaufmann & Co. is preserved among the Kaufmann Papers and allows a recon-

struction of the firm's book sales from 1838 to 1841 when the partnership was dis-

solved.³⁰ The quantity of German books offered for sale, as reflected in these rec-

ords, was not large, the selection of titles more or less limited to schoolbooks,

chapbooks, sermons, books of piety, and a few works on veterinary medicine. If the

Germans around Canton purchased any German literature or current imports dur-

ing this time another source of supply such as J. G. Ritter of Philadelphia is in-

dicated.³¹ Kaufmann & Co.'s retail stock (apart from Kaufmann's own publications)

consisted of private consignments sold on commission, a few special titles in quan-

tity, and a large assortment brought into the partnership by Kaufmann, himself.

From 1838 until the termination of the partnership total retail sales amounted to a

bare $274.021/4. Here is the breakdown by consignments:32

1. Books of August Graeter 33 sent from Cleveland, worth $184.783/4-sales

$37.711/4.

2. Books of August Graeter sent from New Lisbon worth $129.52-sales $34.551/4.

 

 

 

 

29. "Kaufmann Inventory," 7. A broadside, "First Catalogue of Peter Kaufmann & Co.'s Circulating

Library" (ca. 1838), listed a collection of 708 volumes, all in English. Only slightly more than 400 differ-

ent books were actually represented, since Kaufmann included multiple copies of certain titles. Ernest

Wessen's annotation in Midland Notes, 62 [1956], item no. 54, is worth repeating: "Unusual in a midwes-

tern book catalog of this period, whose snobbish compilers usually stocked up on English staples; with

perhaps Irving and Cooper tossed in for the hoi polloi; this catalog presents a surprising showing of the

works of Charles Brockden Brown, Simms, Kennedy, Tucker, John Neal, Brackenridge, Sara Hale, and

other American writers."

30. For the dates of the Kaufmann, Hawrecht and Wink partnership see Arndt and Olson, German-

American Newspapers, 432; Raber, "Ruckerinnerungen ...." Der deutsche Pionier, III (October 1871),

248. Rattermann says the firm was organized in the fall of 1837. "Der Deutsch-Amerikanische Journa-

lismus." 293. In the Kaufmann Papers, Box 10, may be found: "A Statement of the account of the Firm

of Peter Kaufmann & Co. The partners being Peter Kaufmann, Henry Hawrecht & Charles J. Wink,

taken from their books & comprising the various items & relations of their entire business .. ." Within a

plain folder are eleven leaves containing 18 numbered pages, first and last leaf unpaged. This statement is

not dated but was probably completed in early 1841 on occasion of the firm's dissolution. Hawrecht and

Wink moved to Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where on June 3, 1841 they published the first issue of Der Geist

der Zeit, a Democratic weekly. Arndt and Olson, German-American Newspapers, 533.

31. During 1840 Kaufmann ordered several books from J. G. Wesselhoeft in Philadelphia for his own

use: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's Philosophische Schriften, Immanuel Kant's Kritik der reinen

Vernunft [Critique of Pure Reason], Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Grundlage der gesammten Wis-

senschaftslehre [Foundations of the Sciences], and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Wissenschaft der

Logik [Science of Logic_]. Invoice in Kaufmann Papers, Box 6.

32. These seven accounts are recorded in "A Statement of the account of the Firm of Peter Kaufmann

& Co....," Kaufmann Papers, Box 10. Sales figures for each of the seven consignments are taken

directly from the "Statement." Total value of each consignment, however, had to be calculated by the au-

thor, This could not be done accurately for the Peter Kaufmann consignment because the record contains

many ambiguous entries.

33. Augustus Graeter (1803-1863) was, from 1831 to 1834, associated with A. A. Blumer in Allentown,

Pennsylvania, where the two published the weekly Friedens-Bote as well as some popular religious works.

Graeter sold out to his partner in January 1834 and moved to Ohio. Charles Graeter was perhaps his

brother. See Alfred L. Shoemaker, A Check List of Imprints of the German Press of Lehigh County, Penn-

sylvania 1807-1900 (Allentown, 1947), 49-50, 211.

• 12
 

German Book Trade                                                     69   3. Ohio Gesetzbucher34 (80 copies) worth $100.00-sales $30.00. 4. Books of Charles Graeter sent from Wooster worth $44.8 1/4-sales $19.051/4. 5. Books from Wesselhoeft35 (24 copies of Witschel's Morgen und Abendopfer) worth $15.00-sales $1.25. 6. Books from Huston (12 Testaments and 12 Hymn books) worth $11.25-sales $4.811/4. 7. Books and materials from Peter Kaufmann worth about $492.75 (including songsters, prints, paper and ink, many English-language law books largely un- sold and numerous unidentified lots)-sales $146.641/4. The first five consignments were almost all German books; the titles in August Graeter's shipment from Cleveland are representative: 36

34. The Deutsches Gesetzbuch . .. (Germantown, O.: Gedruckt bei Walker u. Espich, 1839), contained translations of the constitution and general laws of Ohio, the Declaration of Independence and the Con- stitution of the United States. Published at the expense of the translator, George Walker, a theology stu- dent from Wurtemberg and a very talented German-American editor. Dr. Christian Espich had taken over the office of the National Zeitung der Deutschen after Edward Shaeffer's death. See Rattermann, "Die deutschen Pioniere von Montgomery County, Ohio," Der deutsche Pionier, XI (September 1879), 217-218. 35. Johann George Wesselhoeft, publisher of the influential newspaper the Alte und neue Welt from 1833 through 1842, and the leading German bookseller in Philadelphia for most of that time, belonged to a large and distinguished family with branches in North Germany and Thuringia. His cousins, Robert, a former leader of the Jena Burschenschaft (student organization), and Wilhelm Wesselhoeft both emi- grated to America and attained some eminence as physicians. As a young man, J. G. Wesselhoeft was ap- prenticed to his uncles' bookselling and publishing firm in Jena-Frommann & Wesselhoeft. The From- mann house was a center of cultural life in the Jena, Weimar district, and Goethe himself was a frequent visitor. J. G. Wesselhoeft came to America in the autumn of 1832 and doggedly attempted to build up a sustaining business in German books. He also turned his hand to book publishing and produced some textbooks, works on homeopathic medicine and other popular volumes such as Witschel's hymnal, Mor- gen und Abendopfer. Branches or agencies were established in New York, Allentown, Baltimore, Cincin- nati, Charleston, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., but the financial panic of 1837 ultimately led to his bankruptcy. After 1843 he ran a German bookshop in St. Louis. 36. "A Statement of the account of the Firm of Peter Kaufmann & Co....." 1, Kaufmann Papers, Box 10.

• 13
 

This lot was made up mainly of books of instruction and piety. In the first cate- gory fall the ready reckoners, Georg Christian Raff's Naturgeschichte fur Kinder, F. P. Wilmsen's Deutscher Kinderfreund adapted for German-American schools and published by Johann George Wesselhoeft of Philadelphia in 1839, the ABC books, of course, and two historical works for students that went through many editions- Gabriel Gottfried Bredow's Merkwurdiges Begebenheiten aus der allgemeine Welt- geschichte [Noteworthy Events of General World History] and Joachim Heinrich Campe's Die Entdeckung von Amerika [The Discovery of America]. The devotional books and hymnals were mostly hardy perennials from the Pennsylvania-German milieu, mystical works of Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) and Johann Arndt (1555-1621), the hymns of Benjamin Schmolke (1672-1737), the prayerbooks of Jo- hann Starck (1680-1756) and Leonard Goffine (1648-1719). Seven numbers of Heinrich Jung-Stilling's edifying periodical Der graue Mann remained unsold. Jon Philip Schabaelje's Die wandelnde Seele [The Wandering Soul] and a hymnal, Der kleine geistliche Harfe, were favorite Mennonite works and most probably Pennsyl- vania imprints (before 1800 alone Die wandelnde Seele enjoyed five separate Ameri- can editions). At the head of the list stood the book of secrets ascribed to Albertus Magnus, always a favorite among Pennsylvania-German farmers.

• 14
 

German Book Trade                                                                  71

 

It would be fair to say that Kaufmann's greatest profits from the book trade came

from the sale of his own publications 37 (particularly the almanacs), job printing, and

his German newspaper. There were, according to one estimate, about 400,000 Ger-

mans in Ohio by 1837; 38 and with the Germans living in surrounding areas, a large

potential market for Kaufmann's almanacs existed. Der Westliche "Vaterlands-

freund" und Cantoner Calender, earliest recorded copy for 1833,³⁹ proved enor-

mously popular because of, or despite, the popularizations of Hegelian philosophy

they contained. From the outset the printings were large. A letter from Johnston &

Stockton of Pittsburgh dated May 26, 1832 suggested optimistically that a total pub-

lication of the almanacs should be 15,000 and confirmed an order for 10,000 copies.

However, on September 11 the firm admitted the competition from the Hagerstown

German almanacs was greater than they thought so would only like 7 or 8,000 in

all.⁴⁰

During the early 1840's, Peter Kaufmann obtained one of the first power presses

in the region and thereby attracted commissions from American publishers in other

cities, such as the Cleveland firm of Sanford and Hayward:

 

Cleveland Feb. 29, 1844

Dr Sir

it was my intention to call'd [sic] on you on my Return from Cincinnati but the

Roads were so Bad I was very Glad to get Home, but I write you To Know if you would

Like to Strike off for us a few Thousand Copies of Two Good works which we are

about to Publish & one of them will be Sold to Subscribers exclusively, & we do not

Hesitate to Say that (we think) 50,000 copies can & will be sold @ 2$ pr copy, if we

could make any arrangement with you to strike them off on your Power Press-for us-

or any other way that we might agree upon. We should like to do so-if not-we must

buy a power press this Spring. We should [like] to See You & if the Roads were Good

we would come out, but you can give us you[r] views. How much you would charge pr

Token To Print Say 5,000 copies of 600 pages-we find paper-. . . Money can be made

out of it, by Good Management.

Please Write us Your Views.

Respectfully                 Sanford & Hayward41

 

 

37. Midland Notes, 62 [1956] listed for sale three Kaufmann publications, item no. 384, a primer, Das

teutsche Cantoner ABC-Buchlein ... (1839); item no. 366, a hymnal, Ein unpartheyische Gesang-buch ...

(1839); and item no. 594, an eight page account of the crime and punishment of one Christian Bechtel.

38. Easton, Hegel's Followers, 104.

39. The earliest edition in Drake, Almanacs of the United Slates, II, 884, is for 1833, written by Charles

F. Egelmann. There may have been an 1832 edition. A letter to Kaufmann from Johnston & Stockton in

Pittsburgh dated October 1, 1831 refers to a German almanac planned for the coming year. Kaufmann

Papers, Box 3, folder 11.

40. Kaufmann Papers, Box 3, folder 12, letters of May 16, 26, September 11, 1832. The profitability of

German almanacs attracted Anglo-American publishers like N. and G. Guilford of Cincinnati, and John

Gilbert and Co. of Columbus. Guilford almanacs for 1831, 1832 and 1833, the last with a Lancaster, O.

imprint, are listed in Drake, Almanacs of the United States, II, 881-883. The Ohio Historical Society owns

two almanacs not in Drake: Samuel Burr's Des Freyen-Mannes Calender, Aufdas Jahr. . 1827. . . (Cin-

cinnati, 0.: Gedruckt und zu haben bey N. und G. Guilford, und 0. und W. Farnsworth . . .); and Wil-

liam Lusk's Der deutsche Baueren Calender, Auf das Jahr . . . 1834. .. (Columbus , Ohio: Zum erstenmal

gedruckt und zu verkaufen bey John Gilbert und Co.... 1834). Between 1834 and 1848 such speculations

by non-German printers in Ohio apparently ceased. This in part can be credited to the great popularity of

the Kaufmann Canton almanacs.

• 15
 

72                                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

Just before 1848, Kaufmann's almanacs were being produced in huge quantities.

News of this fact soon reached the ears of John Gruber of Hagerstown, Maryland,

the patriarch of German-American almanac publishers whose Neuer Nord-Ameri-

canische Stadt und Land Calender dated back to 1797. In a fascinating letter, the

aged Gruber (1768-1857) made diffident inquiries of his young western rival:

 

Hagerstown, May 14, 1846

Mr. Peter Kaufman,

Dear Sir,

I have been informed by August Heym, a journeyman printer, that you are in the

habit of printing German and English almanacs extensively.-As I have been printing

Engl. & Germ. alm[anacs] yearly for many years, you would confer a favor in forward-

ing me a copy of each for 1846, or any other year, per mail.-They might be enveloped

the same as periodical pamphlets, with one end open, and addressed:

 

John Gruber, printer

Hagerstown, Md.

.. .-My object in asking this favor is merely to have a view of your almanacs, and to

gratify my curiosity. -I have been told by said Heym, that you printed 80,000 dozen

German, and 40,000 dozen English almanacs for 1846! and that you use the Power

press, & can print 6000 sheets daily. -Is it possible that your custom is so extensive?

Respectfully Yours,

John Gruber⁴²

 

Financial security and a growing preoccupation with politics and public affairs in-

duced Kaufmann to dispose of his publishing and bookselling interests. Already by

1842 he had allowed his son-in-law Heinrich Joseph Nothnagel to assume some por-

tion of responsibility for the Vaterlandsfreund und Geist der Zeit. While Kaufmann's

publishing activities in Canton apparently came to an end with an 1848 almanac,

his withdrawal from retail bookselling may have occurred even earlier. According to

Rattermann, Kaufmann disposed of his book stock to Philipp Stuerhof who com-

bined with it a lending library and book bindery. Stuerhof, a former shoemaker,

first advertised his "literary bureau" in December 1846.⁴³ Besides the usual claim

that he would take orders for books in any field of knowledge, Stuerhof listed the

most noteworthy of his new books on hand. These included German-American

imprints from the East such as John Frost's Illustrierte Geschichte der Vereinigten

 

 

 

41. Kaufmann Papers, Box 7, folder 24. The meaning of "token" varied in different parts of the coun-

ctry. According to Silver, in New England the term usually stood for 250 sheets printed on both sides but

in other localities it often stood for 250 sheets printed on only one side. Rollo G. Silver, The American

Printer 1787-1825 (Charlottesville, 1967), 74.

42. Kaufmann Papers, Box 7, folder 26.

43. Arndt and Olson, German-American Newspapers, 432; Charles F. Egelmann, Western Patriot and

Canton Almanac for 1848; Drake, Almanacs of the United States, II, 901; Rattermann, "Der Deutsch-

Amerikanische Journalismus," 295-296. He does not specify when Stuerhof acquired Kaufmann's book

stock. Later, from December 1861 to 1869, just before his death, Kaufmann was editor/publisher of an-

other Canton German newspaper, Der Deutsche in Ohio. Arndt and Olson, German American News-

papers, 430. See also Fig. 37 for further information on Kaufmann's activities.

• 16
 

German Book Trade                                                                  73

 

Staaten, Eugene Sue's Der ewige Jude [The Wandering Jew, his Die Geheimnisse von

Paris [The Mysteries of Paris] and Friedrich von Raumer's Die Vereinigten Staaten

von Nordamerika.⁴⁴

 

Cincinnati

Cincinnati by 1830 had become for Anglo-Americans the cultural center of the

West and within a decade would hold the same position for German-Americans.⁴⁵

Between 1834 and 1835 five or possibly six German-language newspapers were

founded in the Queen City with the backing of either Whigs or Democrats. This

politicization of the German press occurred in every part of the Union where the

German vote was important and contributed to the growth and influence of Ger-

man-American journalism, if not always to its quality. Two outstanding western

newspapers got started at this time, the Anzeiger des Westens in St. Louis and the

Cincinnati Volksblatt, founded in 1835 and 1836 respectively. Heinrich Roedter, the

radical young editor of the Volksblatt, was one of the capable new men who stimu-

lated the political, social and cultural life of the German community.⁴⁶ No informa-

tion has ever been collected on the early German book trade in Cincinnati, an un-

fortunate but not surprising circumstance. Even such a thorough historian as Walter

Sutton in his definitive history of the Cincinnati book trade, limited his area of con-

cern to the Anglo-American world.⁴⁷

The first vendor of German books in Cincinnati apart from colporteurs was the

hardware merchant Gustav Herder (1810-1884),48 agent for J. G. Wesselhoeft of

Philadelphia from 1834 to 1843. The first regular German book store, a Catholic

book store, was opened in 1837 by Louis Meyer. This event was directly attributable

to the rapid growth of Cincinnati's German Catholic population and to the dynamic

Catholic leader Father Johann Martin Henni. It was Father Henni who founded the

Wahrheitsfreund, also in 1837, the first German-language Catholic newspaper in the

United States. For some years the main source of German Catholica was the colpor-

teur's wagon of J. G. Ritter out of Philadelphia. The following notice appeared in

the Wahrheitsfreund of October 19, 1837:

J. G. Ritter, German bookseller from Philadelphia, has arrived with a considerable supply of

good German Catholic prayer books and sermons. He also is accepting subscriptions for Al-

lioli's Heilige Schriften, which will be published in six volumes. In one year he will deliver to

 

 

 

44. Advertisement in the Ohio Staats-Bote (Canton), December 16, 1846. The first German edition of

Frost was published by Mentz and Rouvoudt of Philadelphia. The American reprint of von Raumer's

book was published in Philadelphia by J. H. Schwacke & Co. Sue's Der ewige Jude was published in parts

by L. S. Wollenweber, then proprietor of the Philadelphia newspaper, Der Demokrat. The Geheimnisse

von Paris, also by Sue, was translated by the German-American journalist Victor Wilhelm Froehlich and

published by Charles Mueller of New York in parts; it was printed by Jacob Uhl, owner of the New

Yorker Staatszeitung. All of the above titles were published during 1846.

45. By 1840 there were 14,163 Germans in Cincinnati or 28 percent of the adult male population.

Charles Cist, Cincinnati in 1841 Its Early Annals and Future Prospects (Cincinnati, 1841), 34, 37, 39.

46. German literary life in Cincinnati has been chronicled in detail by Rattermann, "Deutsche Bilder

aus der Geschichte der Stadt Cincinnati, III: Deutsche Literaten und Literatur," Der deutsche Pionier, IX

(1877-1878), 389-398, 422-434, 459-468; X (1878-1879), 49-56, 106-113, 234-238, 317-323, 429-435,

474-487.

47. See Walter Sutton, The Western Book Trade: Cincinnati as a Nineteenth-Century Publishing and

Book- Trade Center ... 1796-1880 (Columbus, 0., 1961).

48. See his obituary in Der deutsche Pionier, XVI (March 1885), 519.

• 17
 

74                                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

subscribers this outstanding translation of the Scriptures, approved by the Catholic Church.

He also will take orders for Goffine's outstanding book of instruction [Christliches Unterrich-

tungsbuch]. He is lodging at Mr. George Gettier's Lafayette Coffeehouse "am Mittelmarkt."

Since he will, however, be staying only for a few days, booklovers are asked to present them-

selves soon.⁴⁹

The Catholic community required a more permanent source of supply and, at Fa-

ther Henni's instigation, Louis Meyer started up in business.

Meyer, who was also a printer and very probably worked on the Wahrheitsfreund,

began during the early 1840's to issue the Cincinnatier hinkende Bote [Cincinnati

Limping Messenger, ein Calender .., a series of almanacs inspired by the South

German Lahrer hinkende Bote.50 His earliest recorded imprint was a sixteen page

sales catalogue of German books dated January 1839, which must count as the first

German bookseller's catalogue published west of the Alleghenies. The full title

reads: Verzeichniss der Bucher, welche bei Louis Meyer, Buchdrucker und Buchhan-

dler in Cincinnati, Ohio zu haben sind; a copy is in the Yale University Library. Most

of the items therein were German Catholica and were classified as prayerbooks (86

titles) and theological books (68); listed under the latter category was an eighteen

volume set of the Church Fathers. Other groupings were for medical books (8),

schoolbooks (7), French prayerbooks (9), and an "Anhang" of six miscellaneous ti-

tles. "Philosophie, Naturgeschichte und andere wissenschaftliche Bucher" (32 titles)

was a catchall rubric under which one found such works as Gellert's Fabeln [Fables]

and Walter Scott's Sammtliche Werke in twenty-five volumes.

Meyer promised a larger stock on his shelves especially of literature suitable for

younger readers as well as a wide selection of prints, rosaries and crucifixes. By 1843

Meyer was located on Fifth Street and his shop was known as the German &

French Bookstore; his address after 1846 was Main between Twelfth and Thirteenth

streets. The firm name appears as Meyer & Co. more or less regularly until 1849

when it becomes Meyer & Meis; however, the last city directory entry (1850-1851)

reads simply Louis Meyer, bookstore. The demands of the Catholic community

were great enough to support two additional German Catholic booksellers (of

course they carried general literature as well)-Niklaus Schwarz (or Swartz), from

the early 1840's through 1850 at Fifth Street between Smith and Park; and Peter

Kreuzburg (or Kritzburg), from 1846 on Green between New and Race streets. It

was the firm of Kreuzburg and Nurre (probably J. Nurre a carpetweaver who lived

on Plum Street) who later inherited Meyer's store when Meyer went to New York

City around 1853 to become manager of the first American branch of Benziger

Brothers, an important German Catholic publishing house located in Einsiedeln,

Switzerland.51

Some of the earliest German imprints from Cincinnati, apart from newspapers

 

 

 

 

49. Quoted in George Timpe, Katholisches Deutschtum in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika (Frei-

burg im Breisgau, 1937), 24. Translated by the author.

50. See A. Dresler, "Die Cincinnatier hinkende Bote," Der Borsenblatt (Frankfurt am Main), August

27, 1957, pp. 1138-1139. The earliest edition known to Dresler was that of 1847. There is in the library of

the New York Historical Society an almanac dated 1842 with the imprint Meyer & Co.. and The Ohio

Historical Society has one dated 1845.

51. Verzeichniss der Sammlungen des Borsenvereins der deutschen Buchhandler, II (Leipzig, 1897), 37.

See also Rattermann, Gesammelte ausgewahlte Werke, X, 320.

• 18
 

German Book Trade                                                               75

 

and almanacs, must be reconstructed from secondhand references. Two belletristic

works circa 1840-a collection of poetry for school use edited by an eccentric Protes-

tant pastor, Philipp Hauser, and a Liederbuchfur Emigrantenjugend by Julius Weyse

(or Weise), who taught from 1836 to 1839 at a school for German emigrant children

sponsored by the Presbyterian Lane Seminary-have eluded even the indefatigable

Rattermann.⁵² More difficult to assess is the volume of colportage literature printed

in Cincinnati and other parts of Ohio, that lucrative line of Volksbucher, magical

handbooks, hex books and the like that for decades remained staples of the Ger-

man-American trade. Much of this material was "imported" from nearby Pennsyl-

vania and from Wilhelm Radde of New York City who made a small fortune from

this branch of publishing. But there was local production as well.53

In Cincinnati Benjamin Boffinger, publisher of the Westliche Staatszeitung, suc-

cumbed to temptation and issued a reprint, without name or place, of a notorious

old book of spells falsely ascribed to Pope Leo X called Die geistliche Schild, or

more usually Die wahre geistliche Schild [The True Spiritual Shield]. The reprint ap-

peared in 1837 and Father Henni lashed out at Boffinger in no uncertain terms for

publishing this "abomination" in the first place, let alone for being so cowardly as to

publish it anonymously. "We leave it to the public," he wrote, "to judge what to

think of such a man who, even if short of cash, degrades his press-which should be

devoted only to education, and for which the truth should be sacred-by dis-

seminating lies and superstition among simple creatures." 54 Poor Boffinger's efforts

have vanished along with the labors of Hauser and Weyse. Some years later, during

1846 and 1847 to be exact, a number of German-language works of originality and

significance were published in Cincinnati, most noteworthy was Franz von Loher's

Geschichte und Zustande der Deutschen in Amerika [History and Condition of the

Germans in America] the first history of the German element in America. Loher's in-

fluential volume, also released in a European edition, printed in Leipzig by K. J.

Kohler, was published by the short lived firm of August Eggers and Leopold Wul-

kop (January 1, 1847-November 26, 1848).55

Fortunately data on the German press and literary milieu is more accessible; in-

direct evidence of the availability of German books in Cincinnati.⁵⁶ As early as 1839

a German circulating library of some 2,000 volumes was in existence, run by Emil

Klauprecht, an ambitious lithographer and later one of the city's outstanding jour-

nalists. A German Reading and Educational Society was organized in 1844 with Dr.

Friedrich Roelker as first president. In 1846, members could buy for ten cents a

printed catalogue of the library, a collection that grew to around 4,000 volumes by

 

 

 

 

 

52. Hauser's book was mentioned by Johann Gottfried Buttner, Die Vereinigten Staaten von Nord-

Amerika ..., I, 141. Weyse's Songbook for Emigrant Youth is referred to in Emil Klauprecht, Deutsche

Chronik in der Geschichte des Ohio-Thales und seiner Hauptstadt Cincinnati ins Besondere (Cincinnati:

G. Hof & M. A. Jacobi, 1864), 174. Rattermann's unsuccessful search for these items is mentioned in

"Deutsche Literaten und Literatur," Der deutsche Pionier, IX (February 1878), 425-427.

53. Friedrich Fieser, "Aus meinen Erinnerungen," Der deutsche Pionier, I (November 1869), 276.

54. Quoted in Rattermann, Gesammelte ausgewahlte Werke, X, 308. Translation by the author.

55. The dates of the Eggers-Wulkop partnership are given in the Adressbuch fur den deutschen Buch-

handel ... (Leipzig) for 1848 and 1849.

56. On the press see Henry John Groen, "A History of the German American Newspapers of Cincin-

nati before 1860" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1944).

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76                                                                     OHIO HISTORY

 

the time of the Civil War.⁵⁷ One of the founders of the Society was the apothecary

Carl Friedrich Eberhard Backhaus, who as a youth attended, but never graduated

from the University of Gottingen-his political activities forced him to emigrate to

America in 1833. Rattermann called him the "Poet Laureate" of early Cincinnati,

though his poetry often made up in sarcasm what it lacked in polish. Backhaus was

a "personality" of importance in Cincinnati German society and he, like a number

of tradesmen of that time, cultivated as a sideline the retailing of German books.

During the early 1840's other dealers appeared on the Cincinnati scene apart from

those already mentioned, none especially prominent: Karl Meinberg, bookseller

and binder at Thirteenth and Vine; C. Samyn located on Front Street and perhaps

more esteemed as the distributor of violins made by Peter Dubois; and J. Licht on

Main Street, a busy subscription agent circa 1846. American booksellers like Ed-

ward Lucas also advertised occasionally in the German press.⁵⁸

On the eve of 1848 there were few localities in Ohio other than Canton and Cin-

cinnati where a self-styled German bookseller could be found. One such place was

Chillicothe, where on September 30, 1847 G. M. Rollmann began to advertise his

wares in the Cincinnati Volksblatt. Usually in communities where the concentration

of Germans did not yet warrant a specialized bookstore, some German-language

books could be obtained from local American booksellers. Cleveland in 1848, for

example, had three apparently thriving establishments: H. B. Pearson, for period-

icals, newspapers and "cheap literature generally . . . "; A. S. Sanford, "School

Books, Stationery, Juvenile Works . . ."; and W. H. Smith who had on hand "All

Articles in the Book-Selling Line . . . "59 Also German merchants, grocers, dealers in

toys and notions, often stocked German books as a sideline (the hardware dealer

Gustav Herder and the apothecary Backhaus of Cincinnati are cases in point).

The cities of Cleveland and Columbus, whose populations in 1850 were respec-

tively, 17,034 and 17,882,60 had no German book store, if we exempt the editorial of-

fices of the local German newspapers, until 1849 at the earliest. Cleveland's first

German-language newspaper, the Cleveland-Germania, was founded in 1846 by Ed-

ward Hessenmueller⁶¹ and Ludwig von Wangelin but did not last beyond 1853.

Cleveland's first German bookseller was W. Luetkemeyer, who also ran a commis-

sion agency. He opened his book, art and stationery store in 1849 at 9 Water Street,

 

57. "Under the pressure of the Civil War," wrote Gustav Koerner, "[the Society] was dissolved and the

library of some 4,000 volumes was transferred to the singing society 'Mannerchor' .. ." Das deutsche Ele-

ment in den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerika 1818-1848 (Cincinnati, 1880), 200. Translation by the

author. Notice of a printed library catalog appeared in the Volksblatt, March 11, 1846. For Klauprecht

see the Cincinnati Volksblatt, February 15, 1839.

58. For Backhaus see the New Yorker Staatszeitung, November 15, 1837, and Rattermann, "Deutsche

Literaten und Literatur," Der deutsche Pionier, X (June 1878), 108. On Meinberg, Samyn and Licht see

the Cincinnati Volksblatt for July 21, 1843; January 9, 1844; and May 8, 1846. Lucas' notice appeared in

Der Ohio Volksfreund for April 21, 1841.

59. All listed in Smead & Cowles' General Business Directory of the City of Clevelandfor 1848-9.

60. The Seventh Census of the United States (1850), 825, 827. In 1850, the membership of German con-

gregations in Cleveland was given as: German Evangelical Protestant Church, 300-400; German Evan-

gelical Lutheran 300; and children in Sunday School at the German Methodist Mission, 50 plus 10 teach-

ers. These figures, of course, do not represent the total German population of Cleveland at the time. See

Smead& Cowles'General Business Directory for the City of Cleveland [1850-1851] .... 28, 29.

61. Gustav Koerner asserts that Hessenmueller, a political exile of the 1830's, moved to Cleveland in

1840 where he was permitted to practice law and where he wrote a short work in German on the Ameri-

can legal system which was published in book form together with German translations of the United

States and Ohio constitutions, and the statutes and ordinances of Cleveland. Das deutsche Element ...,

231. No further reference to such a publication has been found.

• 20
 

German Book Trade                                                                  77

 

and the local Germans were offered, besides over-the-counter sales, the use of a

1,870 volume circulating library. For whatever reasons he seems to have abandoned

the business after 1852.62 The establishment of a German newspaper in Columbus,

the hub of state government, was attempted quite early, during the years 1833-1834

when the German population was undoubtedly small. Der Emigrant, edited by

George Kissling (or Kessling, both used) and possibly a second paper, the Ohio In-

telligencer, were the names of these pioneering efforts.⁶³ On October 2, 1843 the first

issue of Der Westbote was published by Friedrich Fieser and Jacob Reinhard. This

newspaper, one of the chief cultural assets of the Germans in Columbus, was ex-

cellently edited by Fieser who made it into a powerful voice of the German Demo-

crats in the Middle West. By 1850, with the accelerated rate of German emigration

already being felt in Columbus, the time seemed ripe to open a specialized German

book store. This was done by the partners F. A. Lichters and C. Baser whose store

served the community for ten to twelve years.64

A watershed in German-American history was created by the mass emigration

that followed the 1848 Revolution. This phenomenon completely altered the pros-

pects and structure of the German book trade in America. The city of Cincinnati, in

particular, took a leading role in that expansion. Before the 1850's drew to a close, a

German-American book trade had developed that reached from the Atlantic to the

Pacific Coast, the culmination of a westward movement that had begun half a cen-

tury earlier when the Germans first penetrated the Ohio Valley in ever increasing

numbers.

 

62. Luetkemeyer's bookstore does not appear in the 1853 city directory; in the directory for 1850-1851

the name is spelled Luitkemeyer. The circulating library was advertised in the Cleveland-Germania

(weekly), July 2, 1851.

63. In William T. Martin, History of Franklin County ... (Columbus, 1858), 69, we read: "About the

years 1833 and '34, there were two German papers in Columbus, one entitled the Emigrant, and the other

Ohio Intelligencer, both discontinued long since." Der Emigrant (1833-?) is listed by Arndt and Olson,

German-American Newspapers, 472, who note the variant spelling of the editor's name.

64. The firm name does not appear in the city directory for 1860-1862. However, 1850 to 1862 are the

inclusive dates for Lichters & Baser given in the Adressbuch fur den deutschen Buchhandel; see the vol-

umes for 1851 and 1863. Information on business openings and closings found in the Adressbuch is usu-

ally reliable and often based upon notifications sent by the firm in question to members of the German

book trade.

• 21