Adolph Heinrich Wappäus

Adolph Heinrich Wappäus (born August 17, 1814 in Hamburg ; † November 16, 1904 in Hamburg) was a German businessman and owner of the shipping company AH Wappäus. At that time he was one of the pioneers in the German-South American Orinoco trade.

Coat of arms of the shipping company AH Wappäus

biography

Wappäus, son of the shipowner Georg Heinrich Wappäus and Anna Catharina Sophia born. Jörst and brother of the geographer and statistician Johann Eduard Wappäus , went to New York at the age of 18, where he founded the North American partner company of GH Wappäus called Wappäus Ripke Ltd. founded. In 1837 he lost all of his fortune. Two years later he came to Venezuela and also worked as a commercial assistant in Puerto Rico, where he met his future wife Evelina Prudentia del Campo. In Ciudad Bolívar he entered into a partnership with the company Wuppermann & Co, which laid the milestone for the Orinoco trade. Among other things, his first daughter, Anna Magdalena, was born there on December 20, 1853.

In 1856 he returned to Hamburg and one year later founded the successor company of his father AH Wappäus with a focus on Orinoco trade in the Caribbean and Venezuela . Three more children followed with his wife Evelina: Josefa Maria Wappäus (* August 2, 1860), the later librarian Johannes Eduard Wappäus (* January 1, 1864) and Louise Evelina Wappäus (* June 10, 1867)

literature

• Rudolf Vierhaus: Wappäus, Adolph Heinrich . In: Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie , Volume 10: Thies - Zymalkowski . De Gruyter Saur, 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-096381-6 .
• Anette Christine Vogt: A Hamburg contribution to the development of world trade in the 19th century: The merchant shipping company Wappäus in international trade in Venezuela and the Danish and Dutch Antilles on corporate history , Volume 17.