Georg Friedrich Veenfliet

Georg Friedrich Veenfliet (later George Frederick Veenfliet ; born April 2, 1813 in Wesel , Département de la Roer ; † March 29, 1896 in Blumfield , Michigan ) was a German - American revolutionary and politician who, after participating in the German 1848/49 Revolution emigrated to the United States. For 1879 and 1880 he was a member of the Michigan State House of Representatives.

live in Germany

Veenfliet grew up as the only survivor of five children of the married couple Johann Friedrich Veenfliet and Helena Margaretha Wens in Wesel on the Lower Rhine . His family made a living from making and selling stockings. In his youth he lived first on Korbmacherstrasse and then on Brückstrasse . After attending the Protestant elementary school and the Wesel high school . In 1830 he applied to the mountain school in Essen and was trained in mining, but had to drop out in 1832 for health reasons. In September 1833 he obtained his Abitur at a Dortmund grammar school and, after his military service, began studying mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Bonn in autumn 1835 . For disciplinary reasons, he was expelled from the university and de-registered on September 2, 1839. After brief activities as a teacher at schools in Aachen and Rheydt , he worked in his family's business in Wesel from 1841. On July 29, 1841, he married Caroline Kremer (1814-1901), with whom he had eight children.

Little is known about the beginning of Veenfliet's political engagement because many sources, such as letters, were allegedly destroyed out of fear of persecution. In 1845 he signed a petition to the Rhenish Provincial Parliament, which campaigned for Jewish emancipation . In 1847 and 1848 he was a member of the Wesel city council. In March 1848 he spread an appeal to overthrow the Prussian king and to proclaim a Republic of the Lower Rhine. His friends included the revolutionaries Friedrich Anneke , Friedrich Karl Ludwig von Beust and August Willich and the women's rights activist and revolutionary Mathilde Franziska Anneke . From this network Veenfliet supported the revolution, although nothing is known about his further actions. From January 26, 1849, he was put out for a manhunt and accused of high treason . The main reason for this was his commitment to the deposition of the king.

Emigration and Career in Michigan

In 1848 Veenfliet fled to Liège , Belgium , and his family left Wesel in April 1849. After a stopover in Blerick near Venlo in the Netherlands, the family emigrated to the United States via Rotterdam that same year and arrived in Detroit , Michigan , in December 1849 . After arriving in December 1849, he explored the area with Carl Post, who had also come as a refugee, and in the spring of 1850 he and his family were among the founders of the Blumfield settlement in Saginaw County . The village was named after the revolutionary Robert Blum, who was executed in 1848, and attracted mainly settlers of German origin. At that time, Veenfliet changed his first name to George Fredrick or the short form George F. In February 1853, Blumfield received parish status and Veenfliet took up a career in various state electoral offices, including as a school inspector, administrator, magistrate and postmaster. He was also a member of the Freemasons . In 1859 and 1860 he was Michigan State Immigration Officer. As a member of the Republican Party , he was a delegate at the 1860 congress that nominated Abraham Lincoln as a candidate for president. For the Saginaw 3 constituency he was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives on November 5, 1878 , and was a member of this from January 1, 1879 to December 31, 1880. In parliament he was a member of the soil appraisal, immigration and local taxation committees. Veenfliet retired on his family farm in Blumfield in 1885. He died there in 1896 shortly before his 83rd birthday.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Martin Wilhelm Roelen: Georg Friedrich Veenfliet, a Weseler Forty-Eighter. In: Historical Association Wesel (ed.): Wesel and the lower Lower Rhine: Contributions to the history of the Rhine. 2015. pp. 78–94.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Legislator Details - George Frederick Veenfliet , mdoe.state.mi.us. Retrieved from web.archiv.org on April 26, 2020.