Ferdinand Adolf Naeff

Ferdinand Adolf Naeff-Custer

Augusta Maria Naeff-Custer

Adolf Naeff with his great-grandchildren

Ferdinand Adolf Naeff-Custer (born August 26, 1809 in Altstätten , † December 5, 1899 in St. Gallen ) was a Swiss engineer and building contractor . He was a co-designer of the first Swiss railway line Zurich - Brugg (1846/47) and the first rack railway in Europe, the Vitznau-Rigi Railway (1869/70). He was the great-great-grandfather of the first Federal Councilor Elisabeth Kopp .

family

Adolf Naeff was born into a respected St. Gallen family as the eleventh of twelve children. The father Johann Matthias Naeff-Dalp (1773-1853), a textile traders and liberal politician, was Councilor of the Canton of St. Gallen. The mother Maria Naeff-Dalp (1778–1811) came from famous Bündner families, from which several city ​​councilors and guild masters of Chur came from. One of her ancestors was Hartmann von Planta from Zuoz , who signed the five-seal letter in 1462 , the first constitution of the Upper Engadine . Maria Dalp died giving birth to her last surviving daughter; the ten children (two girls died as babies) were lovingly raised by their father and grandmother Anna Naeff-Schachtler, widow of Matthias Naeff .

Wilhelm Matthias Naeff , a member of the first Federal Council from 1848, was one of his five brothers and Adolf Naeff's great-great-granddaughter Elisabeth Kopp became Switzerland's first female Federal Councilor. The first Graubünden Federal Councilor Simeon Bavier , a railway engineer, was a grandson of Maria Dalp's sister, Margaretha Bavier-Dalp, and thus a great cousin of Wilhelm and Adolf Naeff. Caroline Naeff (1807–1886), sister of Adolf, was the wife of the architect Felix Wilhelm Kubly (1802–1872). Another brother of Adolf, Friedrich August Naeff (1806–1842) became the plaintiff of the canton of St. Gallen, he was also the founder and editor of the liberal newspaper “Rheintaler Boten”.

In 1840, Adolf Naeff married Augusta Maria Custer (1817–1850), daughter of a Rheineck banker (Bankhaus zur Rose), whose family provided several town councilors from Altstätten and Rheineck (Custer, Messmer, Schachtler) and is proven to be descended from Charlemagne . Jacob Laurenz Custer , Minister of Finance of the Helvetic Republic , was a great-uncle of Maria Custer. The marriage had five children, Max Adolf (architect), Marie Augusta, Antonia Clara, Rosa Cornelia and Eufrosina Irma, who died as a baby in the same year as her mother.

Out of love for his wife, who died early, Adolf Naeff never married again. He later traveled a lot with her children and grandchildren in Switzerland and Europe. On his 89th birthday, Naeff was framed by five great-grandchildren (photo). His great-grandchildren were also (not in the picture) Max Iklé , Director of the Swiss National Bank and Hansjürg Steinlin , Rector of the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg im Breisgau .

Education

Adolf Naeff went to school in Altstätten, after which he, like his brothers, attended the Aarau Cantonal School, which is famous for its liberal outlook . From 1828 to 1830 Naeff studied engineering at the University of Munich's Institute of Technology and technical drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts . After completing his studies, Naeff completed a three-year internship with engineer Alois Negrelli von Moldelbe in Bregenz and St.Gallen, which he later named as the source of all his professional successes. For his part, Negrelli praised the skills and achievements of his student with “excellent satisfaction”. Naeff attended the Technical University of Vienna ( Polytechnic ) for a semester for a postgraduate course in building engineering before he fully practiced his profession.

Road construction

In the first period (1834–1846) of his professional activity, Naef mainly carried out road construction projects in the cantons of St.Gallen, Appenzell , Zurich , Schwyz and Aargau . The most important buildings included the Ruppenstrasse , which runs through the Ruppen between Altstätten and Trogen , the Rorschacherstrasse between Rorschach and St.Gallen, the Ragaz bathing path through the Tamina Gorge from Bad Ragaz to Bad Pfäfers or the road between St.Gallen and Vögelinsegg towards Trogen , through which the canton capital was directly connected with Altstätten and was one of the most beautiful streets in Switzerland at the time. Naeff also planned and managed the restructuring of the Rheinstrasse between Laufenburg and Koblenz .

Railway construction

First railway line in Switzerland

At the invitation of Negrelli, who was the project manager at the Swiss Northern Railway Company (SNB), Naeff assumed the position of chief engineer for the construction of the first railway line on Swiss soil between Zurich and Baden at the beginning of 1846 as Negrelli's deputy . Construction began in the spring of 1846, and Naeff had to deal with technical difficulties as well as contractual problems, which he mastered with great flying colors. The management of the SNB emphatically praised his professional and human qualities in realizing the project. The railway line was officially opened in August 1847.

Railways and bridges

Adolf Naeff on a test run of the Rigi-Bahn (next to the steam boiler of the locomotive)

Later Naeff built other railway lines, including between Winterthur and St.Gallen, Windisch and Brugg , or Turgi and Koblenz. He planned also belonging to the routes railway bridges, the Aare bridges in Olten and gravels , the Limmat - bridge at Turgi or Reuss - bridge at Windisch . Naeff built the station building in Olten and, together with the engineer Olivier Zschokke, the post office building in Aarau . Naeff planned the St.Leonhardsbrücke in St.Gallen, which was only built in 1901. Naeff managed the St-Gallen branch of the construction company Locher & Cie , which was taken over as an independent company by Naeff and Zschokke in 1867.

First rack railway in Europe

Rigibahn shares on December 31, 1889; signed by the board of directors Adolf Naeff

Also with Zschokke and the engineer Niklaus Riggenbach , Naeff planned and implemented the first mountain railway in Switzerland, the Rigibahn , which was the first cog railway in Europe that led from Vitznau to Rigi . The three engineers founded their company in May 1869 under the name “Naeff, Riggenbach & Zschokke” for the construction and operation of the Rigi cog railway. The first test drive with the steam locomotive took place a year later in May 1870. Four Federal Councilors, Karl Schenk , Jakob Dubs , Josef Martin Knüsel and Transport Minister Wilhelm Matthias Naeff, brother of Adolf Naeff, as well as the entire Lucerne cantonal government took part in the opening trip on May 22, 1871 .

Web links

• Markus Kaiser: Naeff, Adolf. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Commons : Birthplace of Adolf Naeff  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

credentials

1. ^ Family pictures Maria and Johann Matthias Naeff-Dalp and their 10 children with spouses.
2. ↑ Uli W. Steinlin : The ancestors of the Steinlin family from St. Gallen , self-published, Druckerei Krebs AG, Biel-Benken and Basel , 2008, ISBN 978-3-85775-001-4 .
3. ↑ Adolf Naeff-Custer 1809-1899 - records, letters, documents. Edited by Renate Altwegg-Im Hof, Basel, 1996.
4. ^ Memories of the Naeff von Altstätten family , "Der Rheintaler" newspaper, September 27, 1899.

literature

• Peter J. Schaps: Naeff family, Altstätten . In Rheintaler Heads - Historical-biographical portraits from five centuries , published by the Association for the History of the Rhine Valley, Berneck , 2004, ISBN 3-033-00265-X .
• Otto Gsell: On the history of the St. Gallen families Gsell, Baerlocher, Naeff, Lutz. Self-published, Basel, 1984.
• Otto Gsell: Life in the Biedermeier Period . The ancestral gallery in the Marbacher Zehntenhaus. The Naeff-Schachtler [von Altstätten SG] and Custer families. In: Our Rhine Valley , 1990.