John Frederick

Immigrant 1852

The politics & economy of Hesse Cassel in 1850: "Hesse-Kassel or Electoral Hesse (Kurhessen) (was) a mid-size German state, strategically located between the main part of Prussia and the Prussian provinces of Westphalia in western Germany, traversed by two Prussian military roads. In the 1830s and 1840s, Hesse-Kassel was known chiefly for its poverty, its archaic agrarian structure, and its acrimonious constitutional politics. In the aftermath of the 1848 revolution, the very same issues which fed the constitutional conflict of the Vormärz resurfaced and, in 1850, jelled with the Austro-Prussian contest in Germany to produce a diplomatic crisis of the first order..."
See: www.ohio.edu/chastain/dh/hessek.htm

The story of John Frederick has long fascinated his descendants, and provoked much speculation. The kernel of information was that he had been forced to leave Germany and could not return, so his wife met him in England for the trip to Ameri