Would You Drink Wine With Friedrich Münch?
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Would You Drink Wine With Friedrich Münch?
Author, German Immigrant, Lutheran Minister, Missouri State Senator, One of Missouri’s Original Winemakers.
Friedrich Münch CoFounder of Giessen Emigration Society (1)
Today, 38 percent of Arnold’s population has German ancestral roots, and German is the number one claimed ancestry on Missouri census forms.
Within 100 miles of Arnold are dozens of vineyards and wineries. When spring arrives, visitors eager to enjoy good vino will gather for a delicious Missouri vin de table, of which there are many varieties.
If they raise a glass to toast German immigrants Friedrich Münch and his brother Georg, it will be appropriate. In the 1850s, the grape-growing Münch brothers helped launch the Show-Me State’s winery business. Today, it is a $3.2 billion annual industry.
Annette Alden, director of marketing for the Missouri Wine & Grape Board in Jefferson City, says, “We credit Friedrich and Georg Muench with attracting many German immigrants who chose to make Missouri their home, growing vineyards, making great wine and helping to establish Missouri’s world-famous wine industry.”
Friedrich Münch helped hundreds of Germans who wanted to immigrate to Missouri make the trip and he influenced thousands of others to do the same. Why…?
Germany’s ruling aristocracy was corrupt in the 1830s; the German working class was ruthlessly oppressed. A German journalist named Gottfried Duden visited Missouri. His published reports promoted this region as an idyllic Vaterland (homeland), with natural resources along the Missouri River similar to Germany’s Rhineland.
Knowing all of that, Friedrich Münch co-founded the Giessen Emigration Society to transport German citizens across the Atlantic Ocean to Missouri and create a utopia. In 1834, Münch helped 500 German settlers relocate. Those who sailed on the ship Olbers arrived in New Orleans on June 2, 1834. Those who sailed on the ship Medora, arrived in Baltimore on July 24, 1834. From there they traveled down the Ohio or up the Mississippi river to St. Louis, then wagon-trained through Jefferson County to destinations west or created farms in what would become Flamm City. More Germans arrived by the thousands in years ahead.
Allen Flamm, a local historian, says it’s no surprise that 38 percent of Arnold’s population has German roots, according to the U.S. Census, and German is the number one claimed ancestry in the state.
He says, “In 1836 my great grandfather Wilhelm Flamm arrived from the village of Merseburg, Germany to farm here and plant fruit orchards Almost everything around was German. Church schools taught in German. My grandfather learned reading, writing and arithmetic in German. Today, some members of St. John’s Lutheran Church still speak German to each other. So did my parents when they didn’t want kids to understand what they were saying. The German influence is all around Arnold – from cornerstones in old buildings dedicated in German, to gravestone epitaphs honoring dearly departed.”
Missouri Life Magazine points out, “No other immigrant group has had a greater influence on Missouri than the Germans. They influence our agriculture, our arts, our sciences, and our beer. Their passionate antislavery position helped keep Missouri in the Union during the Civil War. At the time, more than half of all immigrant residents here were from German states.”
Blumenhof Winery in village of Dutzow in Missouri Rhineland
Friedrich Münch’s life was focused on positive change for German people. As a young student, he actively protested what he considered a cruel and chaotic German aristocracy and government structure. As an author, pamphleteer and Lutheran minister, he promoted goals to establish a “new and free German State in the great North American Republic.” Münch’s dream of a new German nation-state did not materialize in Missouri, but new German communities successfully were created near Arnold and elsewhere.
Münch guided new immigrants to the town of Dutzow 45 miles from Arnold on the north side of the Missouri River where he built a 120-acre farm and vineyards. Others settled in the town of Washington on the south side of the river, 35 miles from Arnold. Still others settled in Hermann, 70 miles west of Arnold where Stone Hill Winery was established – the biggest in Missouri. By the 1850s, both sides of the Missouri River in those regions were called the Missouri Rhineland. (See Missouri German Settlement Map)
Map image of Missouri German settlement patterns. University of Missouri Press (1)
In her treatise “German Settlement in Missouri,” author Carolyn L. Wright Whitton noted that new settlers wrote home describing a place with “plentiful land, few taxes, few regulations, individual freedom of choice, and opportunities to achieve prosperity with hard work.”
Friedrich Münch was hired by railroads to write booklets encouraging Germans to immigrate. These were published before and after the Civil War (1861-1865) in big U.S. cities and in Europe. He became known as “Father Münch,” the pioneer of German immigration into Missouri.
A new trend called “chain migrations” began to occur from Germany to Missouri, to the eastern seaboard of the U.S., the California coast, the upper Midwest such as Wisconsin and the southwest, notably Texas.
“In 1832, more than 10,000 immigrants had arrived from Germany. By 1854, that number had jumped to nearly 200,000 immigrants,” according to the U.S. Library of Congress.
Friedrich Münch (1799-1881)
As a Lutheran minister, Münch preached most Sundays in a log church to promote humanism and tolerance; he baptized and confirmed children, performed marriages, and held funerals, according to The Missouri Encyclopedia.
Using the pen name “Far West,” he wrote for German newspapers across the U.S. as an expert on cultivating grapevines for winemaking. His publication titled School for American Grape Culture was widely read. In addition, Münch wrote an “immigrant guidebook” about Missouri and he served for many years on the Missouri State Board of Immigration.
He was a Republican delegate at the 1860 convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. A former Democrat, Münch ran for political office on Missouri’s Republican statewide ticket. In 1862 he was elected to a four-year term in the state senate. Fervently anti-slavery, Münch’s political cause was “radical emancipation for people of color.”
Friedrich Münch died on his Dutzow farm December 15, 1881, at age 82. He left his wife, six children, thirty-three grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. One of his sons serving in the Union Army died in the Civil War Battle of Wilson’s Creek, near Springfield, in 1861. Friedrich’s brother Georg Münch had moved to Augusta, Missouri, where he founded Mount Pleasant Winery in 1859. Georg died in 1879.
Mount Pleasant Winery was founded in 1859 by Georg Münch
Missouri today has more than 425 grape growers and 130 wineries that sell 1.6 million gallons of wine annually to more than 875,700 tourists. Missouri vintners produce more than 40 different types of wine. The industry’s 28,000 employees earn about $1 billion in annual wages generating $ 218.5 million in federal taxes every year. Not all of Missouri wine is German. Villa Antonio is a beautiful Italian winery just south of Arnold in Hillsboro. The website https://mo-germans.com/ Is an excellent source of Missouri German history, events and useful programs. Glückliches Leben für Sie! (Happy Life to You!)
Article by Jeff Dunlap for the City of Arnold