Hans Peter Vothmann

Hanspeter Vothmann (* 8. November 1712 in Sønderborg ; † 30th November 1797 ) was a gardener.

ancestors

Hans Peter Vothmann was a son of the gardener Peter Voetmann (born April 4, 1666 in Pattholm ; † June 8, 1765 in Sønderborg ) and his second wife Maria, née Thun (baptized November 20, 1678; † December 31, 1765). The maternal grandfather was the deputy citizen of Sønderborg Christian Jürgensen Thun (* around 1660; † 1725).

Vothmann came from a family of gardeners. Ancestors lived in Westphalia and moved from there to the island of Alsen at the beginning of the 17th century . The father did an apprenticeship with the gardener of Augustenburg Castle . Duke Friedrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg employed him in 1689 as a gardener for plants that were attached to his Sonderburg castle. The Duke died in 1692, and the palace and land were inherited by his brother Friedrich Wilhelm , who continued to employ Peter Voetmann. In 1707 he received a new appointment from the duke.

Vothmann's father leased the largest ducal garden from 1695. The area covered about 1.25 hectares and was at the gates of the city. Here he had his own nursery. The widow of Duke Friedrich Wilhelm sold the property to her sister-in-law Ulrica Antoinette von Ahlefeldt in 1726. Peter Voetmann bought the previously leased land a little later. In the meantime he had built a house with other buildings here. When he died in 1731, a loan still pending for the purchase had to be repaid and a mortgage pending on the garden had to be paid off.

Life

The Gravensteiner bred by Vothmann

Vothmann began training with the gardener Hans Petersen at Gravenstein Castle in January 1731 . After the father's death a few months later, his mother took over the gardening business alone. She had problems making the outstanding payments. At the beginning of 1734, the creditors granted her a ten-year period within which she was to pay off the loan and mortgage. This agreement was later extended again.

Vothmann completed his apprenticeship in January 1734. He then worked for six months as a journeyman in the facilities of Princess Sophie Hedwig of Denmark on Blagard near Copenhagen . Then he went to Sønderborg, helped his mother and gradually took over the gardening business. In 1747 the family had paid off the loan and mortgage. The garden and the building now belonged to Vothmann. In 1755 an adjacent, somewhat larger property was added. He received this on a long lease from the Pension Chamber. The condition for this was that he opened a tree nursery he had planned himself.

Vothmann's father had been the first and only commercial gardener in the region to offer seeds of kitchen plants and flowers. He later stopped this and concentrated on propagating and grafting fruit trees. In this way he had created the first fruit tree nursery in the Kingdom of Denmark. Hans Peter Vothmann expanded this tree nursery further. He also offered seeds again. His garden became a profitable attraction.

Vothmann had particular success with the processing of trunks from his tree nursery. To do this, he used slips that came from a tree in Savoy that had been in the garden since around 1700. Vothmann gave the apple the name Gravensteiner in order to prevent it from being confused with a similar, less tasty apple. Farmers on Als and Sundewitt bought these trees, grew apples and sold them as a sideline. Skippers from Sønderborg offered the opportunity to sell the fruit in the Baltic Sea coast.

In addition to Vothmann's nursery, new fruit tree nurseries were added on Alsen, which the government in Copenhagen liked. The university professor Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld was also committed to state fruit tree nurseries, which should provide the plants to farmers and cottagers free of charge. In 1782 Hirschfeld wrote a "garden calendar", in the first volume of which he dealt with the island of Alsen and the apples there, including the Gravensteiner. In the same year he also wrote about the range and the successes of “Hrn. Commercial gardeners, Hans Peter Vothmann and Johan Georg Vothmann, father and son ”. According to Hirschfeld's account, Vothmann traded with customers in Norway, the Baltic States and St. Petersburg. In Northern Europe, the trees proved to be particularly successful due to their climatic adaptation.

Christiansfeld around 1780

In 1738 the first “emissaries” of the Moravian Brethren reached the region around Alsen. Vothmann let her live with him and a little later became a member. According to a report on the results of the missionary work in North Schleswig from 1769, "Br [uder] Vothmann" was one of the most loyal believers in Sønderborg and the surrounding area. After the community founded a settlement in Christiansfeld , Vothmann donated 100 Dutch linden trees. These grew on both main roads, along a road to the “Gottesacker”, at its crossroads and as the border of the field.

family

On September 15, 1752, Vothmann married Maria Dorothea Oest in Sonderburg (* May 27, 1729 in Ulderup , † May 27, 1805 in Sønderborg). Her father Johann Georg Oest (1686–1747) worked from 1723 as a deacon in Ulderup and from 1746 as pastor in Satrup . He was married to Christiana, née Kühl (1699–1788). Another child of the Oest family was the pastor Nicolaus Oest .

The Vothmann couple had two daughters and seven sons. The daughters died in the sister house in Christiansfeld. Only three of the sons reached adulthood:

• Johann Georg (1755–1788) had been his father's closest collaborator since 1774.
• Nicolai / Nikolaus (born June 26, 1759 - † March 22, 1831) succeeded his brother, although he had not learned the gardening trade. He ran the father's business until the end of his life.
• Christian (* July 1, 1766; † August 31, 1815) worked as a teacher in the school of the Moravian Colony in Neuwied .

literature

• Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, pp. 469–472

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 469.
2. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 469.
3. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 469.
4. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 470.
5. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 470.
6. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 470.
7. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 471.
8. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 471.
9. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 471.
10. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, pp. 469–472.
11. ↑ on the life data, see Dieter Lohmeier: Vothmann, Hans Peter . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 470, on the other information p. 471.
12. ↑ H. Schröder: Nicholas Vothmann in New obituary of German , 9th year in 1831, First Part, Ilmenau 1833, p 289