Jean Eduard Frederich Ruhling

Jean Eduard Frederich Ruhling

Jean Eduard Frederich Ruhling was born in Cassel, Germany in 1845. His father was Ruhling and his mother was Marie Krafft.  Jean’s father was a merchant in Cassel. Following his mother’s death, Jean Eduard decided to move to America.  His father had remarried and he had reached the age when he could be conscripted into the German Army, which he did not want. 

• Compulsory military conscription was unpopular.  Many young men emigrated without permission in order to avoid military service. It has been estimated that more than fifty percent of young men of military age emigrated illegally.
• The largest share of taxes and military personnel came from tradesmen, farmers, artisans, and laborers. Many did not want their children to feel the brunt of upcoming wars, unemployment, indebtedness, and impoverishment.
• Relatives or friends who had already emigrated sent positive reports back to their hometown. Their reports encouraged others to follow.
• It is estimated than about 20,000 Hessians emigrated to America in 1854. Of the number, over 9,000 were from Hesse-Kassel.
• From 1848-1854, approximately 773,000 Germans emigrated to America, with nearly 2/3 of them from Hesse-Kassel, Hesse-Darmstadt, the Palatinate, Baden and Württemberg. 

·          These mid-century immigrants had enough resources to finance their trip, but not enough to keep them rooted to their hometowns. The promise of land extended from America was exactly the promise they were looking for in areas increasingly squeezed for the needed space for farming.

·         Economics wasn’t the only motivating factor for these nineteenth century immigrants, but it was the most important. Political upheavals, climaxing with the revolutions of 1848 that swept across Western Europe, drove some Germans to seek new homes. Although the legend of these activists has lived on in German-American communities, historians have shown that the so-called “forty-eighters” barely caused a bump in the German emigration numbers. Similarly, religious persecution pushed only a relative few to leave their homeland.

The above information is from the German Interest Group - Wisconsin Newsletter, 14, 4 (February 2007).

According to the 1900 Census, Jean Eduard Frederich left Germany in 1863.  He arrived in New York City.  He tried many different jobs.  Since he could draw very well, he obtained work in an ornamental Iron company.  He developed a real talent for design and opened his own business making elaborate fences and gates for large estates outside the city.  He was granted naturalization on  October 9, 1872.