Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/66

 of agriculturists, small tradesmen, mechanics, and common laborers. But there were many persons of education and superior capacity among them, who vigorously leavened the whole body. Two different periods of political upheaval in that of 1830 and the years immediately following, of 1848 and 1849, had served to drive out of the old Fatherland hosts of men of ability and character, and of both of these two “immigrations” the German element in St. Louis and neighborhood had its full share. Some of the notable men of early '30's, the Engelmanns, Hilgards, Tittmanns, Bunsens, Follenius, Körners, and Münchs, settled down in and around Belleville in Illinois, near the Mississippi, opposite St. Louis, or not far from St. Louis, on the Missouri, there to raise corn and wine. Those who, although university men, devoted themselves to agriculture, were called among the Germans half sportively, half respectfully, the “Latin farmers.” Of them, Gustav Körner, who practiced law in Belleville, rose to eminence as a judge, as a lieutenant-governor of Illinois and as a minister of the United States to Spain. Another, Friedrich Münch, the finest type of the “Latin farmer,” lived to a venerable old age in Gasconade County, Missouri, and remained active almost to the day of his death, as a writer for newspapers and periodicals, under the name of “Far West.” These men regarded St. Louis as their metropolis and in a large sense belonged to the “Germandom” of that city.

They were strongly reinforced by the German immigration of 1848, which settled down in that region in considerable number, bringing such men as Friedrich Hecker, the revolutionary leader in Southwest Germany, who bought a prairie farm in Illinois, opposite St. Louis; and Dr. Emil Preetorius, Dr. Boernstein, Dr. Däntzer, Mr. Bernays, Dr. Weigel, Dr. Hammer, Dr. Wm. Taussig and his brother James,