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Herbst 245 [18 ll.: family; signature; his brotherWilhelm still welcome; details; money matters; address] The bride at the wedding mentioned above was four years younger than Victor Klausmeyer, a young widow with two small children who was apparently a pianist from Alsace. The couple had three more children. Klausmeyer was one of the founders of the German Fire Insurance Company of Baltimore, and starting in 1866, he worked as one of its agents. The business was obviously quite successful: the 1870 census lists him with real estate worth $2,800. That a German insurance company could flourish was primarily due to the fact that a good quarter of the population of Baltimore were Germans of the first and second generations. No fewer than three of the eight local daily newspapers were in German (‘‘Correspondent,’’ ‘‘Staatszeitung,’’ and ‘‘Wecker’’). When Klausmeyer died on December 8, 1889, both the English and the German papers reported that the Catholic funeral of this highly respected citizen had been well attended.5 5. Information provided by the donor; MC 1870: Baltimore Co./Md., Baltimore, W. 3, #1215; MC 1880: Baltimore Co./Md., Baltimore, e.d. 28, #143; Obituaries, December 9, 1889, NABS; Schem (1869–81), vol. 2, s.v. ‘‘Baltimore.’’ 30. Kaspar Herbst and Agatha Herbst Kaspar Herbst was the fifth of eleven children and was born in Altstadt, near Rottweil in Württemberg, in 1802. In 1849, now a widower with three children, he married Agatha Efinger, who was twenty-one years younger and the daughter of a tailor from the nearby village of Aixheim. The family immigrated to the United States in 1852, in the midst of one of the largest waves of immigration in the nineteenth century.1 Without making any stops along the way, they moved to northern Pennsylvania, near the shores of Lake Erie. Herbst probably had some experience as a farmer, and it is likely that he crossed the Atlantic with at least some means. In the 1860 census, at any rate, he was listed as a farmer with four more children and real property worth $2,000, plus $800 in personal assets; in 1870 his assets were valued at $6,000 and $1,000, respectively.2 source note: Herbst’s spelling in German is not quite as bad as it is in English, where he mangles words or names, but almost. But this is not what makes his writing hard to understand; instead, it is his use of stilted, old-fashioned language, perhaps the result of his intense interest in reading religious tracts. 1. The parents and four children sailed from Le Havre on the Eastern Queen and arrived in New York on May 10, 1852. NYPL. 2. MC 1860: Erie Co./Pa., Fairview Twp., #757; MC 1870: Erie Co./Pa., Fairview Twp., #20. 246 Herbst Kaspar Herbst’s case is already unusual since he left Germany at the advanced age of fifty (most emigrants were under forty), but even more remarkable is the fact that he was the only one of the letter-writers in this collection to convert from Catholicism and become a Protestant. It seems that right after he arrived, he became a member of St. Jacobus Evangelisch-Unierte Kirche in Fairview Township.3 [Fairview, July 15, 1865] Dearest parents, [47 ll.: property dispute with his brother Melchior in Germany; transfers his claim to his parents] As for emigrating, which you once dreamed of, this is my opinion: [. . .] only those people emigrate to America who are ready for it[. . . .] They are not afraid of the great ocean, nor of the war. But the war is over now, the South is bowed down, their weapons taken away from them. Everyone who wanted to stay in the country had to swear loyalty to the Union, all those who did not want to swear had to leave the country and give up their property.4 Their Presetent Schäff Devesen [Jefferson Davis] is being held prisoner on an island in the sea, tied to a column in chains like a mad dog, day and night, out in the open. He is being guarded by a regiment of soldiers, and under pain of death, no one is allowed to talk to him. He has to stand there mute, he’s not allowed to bark. For nourishment, he is given 3 Krekis [crackers] a day[. . . .] Now and then he also gets some soup fit for dogs. For refreshment he is given water from the stinking rain puddles, and this is...

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