U.S. Sen. Carl Schurz, R-Mo., a political ally and friend of Friedrich and Georg Muench, visited Georg's house in Augusta, Mo., in 1867. He described Georg's house at Mount Pleasant as "nice and clean if not overly pretentious." (Anita Mallinckrodt, The Other Muench: George at Augusta, Missouri, 2013.)
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Carl Schurz
Born near Liblar, near Cologne, Germany, Carl Schurz
(1829-1906) became perhaps the most celebrated German-American of the 19th
Century. A graduate of the University of
Bonn, he had taken part in the 1848 revolutionary movement and had to flee Germany
when the revolt failed.
As a fellow revolutionary for democracy and celebrated German emigre, he became a good friend and political ally of the Muenches. He visited Augusta, Mo., in 1867. Meanwhile, Karl Muench has written a story about discovering new cousins and an interesting connection to Schurz's Augusta visit. It all began when he noticed a chair at an Atlanta bed and breakfast. A sign on the chair said "Carl Schurz sat here." The story file is attached below and also posted on its own page. He immigrated to the United States in 1852, first living in Philadelphia and then in Watertown, Wisc., and Milwaukee. He became an attorney, was an unsuccessful candidate for Lt. Governor and Governor of Wisconsin, and served as Minister to Spain at the beginning of the Civil War. However, he soon resigned that post to fight for the Union as a brigadier general. He worked as a journalist after the war and was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served from March 4, 1869, to March 3, 1875. He became a critic of corruption in President Ulysses Grant’s administration. He served in President Rutherford B. Hayes’ cabinet as secretary of the interior from 1877-1881, edited the New York Evening Post from 1881-1884, contributed to Harper’s Weekly magazine from 1892-1898 and served as president of the National Civil Service Reform League from 1892-1901.
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