Johann Schweffel I.

Johann Schweffel I (born August 24, 1720 in Meldorf ; † April 6, 1792 in Kiel ) was a German merchant.

Live and act

Johann Schweffel I founded a merchant family that was important for Kiel and the surrounding area in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1747 he married Anna Margarethe Schultz, née Herdegen, who was a widow of the businessman Michael Peter Schultz from Kiel. Her son, Johann Philipp Schultz, who was fathered in her first marriage, later set up the sugar factory in Kiel. The Schweffel couple had three children, of which only Johann Hinrich Schweffel II survived their own parents.

On February 8, 1747, Johann Schweffel I. founded a trading company in Kiel as a “spice shopkeeper” and acquired citizenship there the following day. Schweffel mostly traded in food, but also took on bank-like businesses. He was soon rich and respected and became a member of the Kiel city council. From 1753 he belonged to the thirty-two and from 1756 to the sixteen. In 1762 he took over the office of citizen spokesman as head of the city council. In 1775 he was appointed councilor (senator) of the city of Kiel.

In 1774, Schweffel took over the offices of senior man of the Kramerkompanie and the jurate of the Nikolaikirche in Kiel . In 1775 he commissioned Ernst Georg Sonnin or his pupil JA Richter with the construction of the so-called "sulfur house" at the latch. It was the most beautiful and imposing house of Kiel merchants that was built during this time.

Johann Schweffel I died in Kiel at the beginning of April 1792. The business was continued by his son Johann Hinrich II, whom he had taken on as a partner at the wedding of Anna Margarethe Schultz.

literature

• Hedwig Sievert: Schweffel, Johann I. In: Schleswig-Holsteinisches Biographisches Lexikon . Volume 1. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1970, p. 244

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Demolished in 1907 to extend Holstenstrasse