Benecke Family Papers, 1816-1989, n.d. (C3825)
90.8 linear feet, 62 volumes, 3 audio tapes, 3 records, 413 glass plate negatives
INTRODUCTION
Correspondence, business and law firm records, civic, political, legislative, and personal papers of a German American family of Brunswick, Missouri.
DONOR INFORMATION
The Benecke Papers were donated to the University of Missouri over the years from 1955 to 1992 by Joanna B. Townsend, R.W. Benecke, L.W. Benecke, and William Townsend and Blake Sasse. Complete accession information can be found in the collection's information folder.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
LOUIS BENECKE (1843-1919). Louis Benecke was born May 1, 1843, in Stiege, Germany to Heinrich Ludwig Theodore Benecke and Johanna Auguste Bock. His grandfather was a Lutheran minister, and served in the German Legion. His father was a teacher and Supervisor of the Forrest district of Stiege, Hartzmountain, who resigned because of his democratic views and emigrated to Brunswick, Missouri with his family in 1856.
In Germany Louis was on the Boy's Freischussen at the age of eleven. He and his brother, Robert, were admitted to Blankenburg College and Robert was a graduate. In Brunswick Louis attended High School for three months in 1857. In 1858 he was Liederkranz at the Brunswick and Turner Association. From 1857 to 1860 he clerked for F.C. Sasse, the Hotel Harry House, the Dry Goods Store of William Ladd and Company and its successor Mr. Dickey.
In 1861 at age 18, he joined a Union Militia Company, but he withdrew when the company became secessionist. On September 11, he was mustered into Company H, 18th Missouri Volunteers. In 1862 he was promoted to sergeant, taken prisoner at the Battle of Shiloh with General Prentiss, and paroled October 19, 1862. In 1863 he received an honorable discharge on account of a disability contracted in a rebel prison. On June 8, 1864 he was commissioned Lieutenant, Company E, 35th Enrolled Missouri Militia; placed on special duty in Company B (independent Company); recruited a company for U.S. Volunteers, which was assigned as Company I, 49th Missouri Volunteers, on November 17, and placed in command of the District of Chariton County under General Fisk. He went south with his regiment to New Orleans; was detailed as Assistant Inspector General under General Carr, 16th Army Corps at Montgomery, Alabama; and on August 2, 1865, he was mustered out with his regiment.
Louis married Josephine Amerlan of Schwedt, Prussia, June 23, 1868, at the Prescott House, New York, Reverend Foersch officiating. They had seven children (two dying in infancy--a daughter in 1873, a son in 1884)--Dora, Lucia (Lucy), Louis A., Otto K., and Waldo Theodore (Ruby W.).
The Civil War was to continue to exert an influence on Benecke's life. Upon his discharge in 1866, he was naturalized, admitted to the bar of Chariton County, elected Justice of the Peace, and was a claims agent for adjusting and collecting war claims against the government and the Missouri war debt. In 1887 he organized the first G.A.R. post at Brunswick, and subsequently served as post commander, Judge Advocate, Senior Vice Department Commander, and was a delegate to national encampments. He was Department Commander, G.A.R., Department of Missouri, March 1895-April 1896. In 1894 he was commander of the Loyal Legion. Instrumental in the organization of the Federal Soldiers' Home, St. James, he served as President of the Board of Trustees.
In 1876 charges were brought against Benecke and others for withholding claim and pension funds from black claimants. Court cases resulted in his suspension as an attorney, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision and he was exonerated. Benecke also attempted to exonerate himself from charges that he participated in the drowning of a confederate sympathizer. His Historical Sketch of the Sixties in Chariton County, “Chariton County Episode of 1864,” addressed these charges as well as describing diversions practiced by him and his men in Keytesville and surrounding areas.
Benecke kept subject files on pension policies, and maintained a lifelong correspondence with John Cox, fellow pension claim agent; members of his militia company; G.A.R. officials; and other veterans. He sought reimbursement for Spencer rifles furnished his company of volunteers at his own expense, and until his death, he continued to be concerned with pension legislation and the needs of veterans and their families.
Immediately after his return home from the war, Benecke took an active part in politics and civic activities. He was the first Chariton County Republican chairman. He attended every State Convention from 1866-1908, except two; was a delegate to all congressional, senatorial, and judicial conventions of his district, and was a member of the state Republican committee in 1868. In 1868 he applied to Governor Fletcher for a position as his attaché. He was an alternate delegate to the national Republican convention in 1888, 1892, and 1896. A delegate in 1908, he served on the committee to notify Vice President Sherman.
Benecke served as a state senator for the 5th congressional district, 1869-1875. An avid anti-prohibitionist, he was the author of the Chariton County local option bill, which served as a model for similar legislation throughout the state. He introduced legislation against religious and temperance fanatics, and wrote numerous articles and speeches. He introduced several other senate bills and two senate resolutions including an act to prevent drunkenness, and introduced the first bill that removed all restrictions on ex-confederate soldiers. He was chairman of the state senate committee on banks and corporations. Joseph Pulitzer served as Benecke's clerk in 1872.
Benecke's respect for his German heritage is evident. He served on the Chariton County Board of Immigration, 1867-1876. Through his position on the board, and being an agent for, 1859 for various steamship lines, he was able to secure homes and employment for German and other immigrants, as well as arranging their passage from Europe to America, and their transportation westward to Brunswick and Chariton County. In his position as director of the public schools, he placed many German teachers in positions throughout the United States, often continuing a correspondence with them and their families. As an attorney he secured inheritances from Europe for many immigrants. As director of the First National Bank, he was given their foreign exchange business, handling exchanges through Knauth, Nachod and Kuhne Foreign Bankers, New York, for whom he was a correspondent. German veterans appealed to him for aid in securing their pensions and war claims. He was a columnist in the German press, and a local correspondent for the Westliche Post corresponding frequently with E. Pretorious.
In 1880 Benecke was the only practicing Republican attorney in Chariton County. He had been admitted to the Chariton County Bar in 1866, and became Brunswick City Counsellor in 1875. His office was located in the 1st National Bank Building on the corner of Broadway and Jackson Street in Brunswick. Use of the firm name “Benecke and Benecke” was first made in 1906 at which time his son, Ruby W. Benecke, was admitted to the bar and joined his father as a partner. Louis retired in 1914, and when he died in 1919, the name was not changed.
Benecke's business interests were extensive. He served on the board and was also legal council for the Brunswick and Chillicothe Railroad, and helped bring the first railroad to Brunswick. He donated grounds for the Brunswick Brick and Tile Company and served in various official capacities with other members of his family.
He also owned the Brunswick Manufacturing Company, the Brunswick Mineral Bath Company, and the Missouri Manufacturing and Trading Company. He sold wood from his extensive timberlands, and rented farms, buildings, dwellings and other properties from his vast real estate holdings.
He was instrumental in bringing the first telephone to Brunswick and was president of the Chariton County Telephone Company. He maintained several dealerships selling telephones as an agent for J.H. Holcomb and Company; gas and gasoline engines for Weber Engine Company, Kansas City; school and opera chairs for the Racine Furniture Company; calligraphic writing machines for the Parker, Ritter, Nichols Stationery Company, St. Louis; interest tables for the U.S. Central Publishing Company, Hartland, Wisconsin; and farm machinery.
He served as president and manager of the Brunswick Water Works Company, and general manager of the Brunswick gas and mineral well. He and his son Ruby W. were insurance agents representing numerous companies and serving as company attorneys.
Apparently satisfied with his role in state politics, his various business endeavors, and his law practice, Benecke declined the nomination for lieutenant governor in 1872, a nomination for Congress, and an offer to go to Europe in the Consular Service.
Benecke's civic activities mirrored his political and business interests. He organized and became a trustee of the German Lutheran Church in 1867. He was seven times mayor of Brunswick, served on the city council and was city attorney.
He served as director of the public schools, board of education member, township clerk, and was a member of the board of directors of the High School for 38 years, resigning in March 1908. He was considered a prominent German writer on the subject of education. The first colored school in Brunswick received support and funds through his efforts.
A notary public, he kept a notarial record for 1875-1887. He was a county bridge commissioner and was instrumental in obtaining funding for the Grand River Bridge while encountering opposition from the Carroll County Court and F.H. Warner, a local ferryboat man. He served as director of the Elliott Grove Cemetery Association.
Benecke was a member of several secret organizations, holding administrative offices in each. The Brunswick Turn Verein, incorporated in 1867, had Benecke as its recording secretary. He was Deputy Gross Barden, German Order of Harugari [D.O.H.], 1881; Grand Dictator, Knights of Honor, 1886, and a charter member of Chariton Lodge No. 2112.
His anti-clerical stance arose from various churches' positions on secret societies and prohibition, and he withdrew his membership from the German Lutheran Church. He sent his children to the Presbyterian Sunday school.
The first meeting of the Brunswick Literary and Social Club was held in Benecke's office, May 25, 1888. He was vice president of the Brunswick Library Association and attempted to convert the old Sol Smith Russell home into a public library. He was secretary of the Brunswick Commercial Club in 1910, and a delegate to the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress.
Benecke's interests were impressive in scope. He subscribed to twenty-seven magazines and twenty-one newspapers. He wrote historical sketches of the Civil War; spoke before numerous organizations including the Teachers Institute, Brunswick, on education, temperance and prohibition, politics, the German issue and foreign policy.
An avid duck hunter and sportsman, he was president of the Cut-Off Fishing and Hunting Club, owning land on both sides of the west branch of the Cut-Off lake, a lake about three miles long and from 1/8 to 1/2 miles wide, having been formed by the Missouri River leaving its old bed. The lake became a famous resort for fishing parties from St. Louis, Alton, St. Joseph, and Kansas City. Benecke formed the club to regulate use by outsiders.
He supported state game laws and was a delegate to the Conservation Congress. A mounted eagle graced a wall of his law office. He was president and spokesman for a local group of the Missouri River Navigation Congress, and was a delegate to waterway conventions in New Orleans and Washington.
An inventor, Benecke obtained patents on brackets, a chuck, calendars, and a water motor. As an attorney he handled patents for clients, often acquiring a financial interest and later assignment of their patents. He was a weather observer for the U.S. Weather Bureau and invented weather instruments.
On a personal note, Benecke was a lover of good tobacco, beer, music, and had a taste for sweets, ordering through merchants in St. Louis. He exhibited a fine tuned sense of humor and his charity was evident in his actions as well as his remarks. In response to a veteran complaining of delay in processing of his pension increase, Benecke accuses the current administration of delaying actions and writes the pensioner, “I ask you not to die till after the next election.” In a letter to the Protective League of American Showmen, Benecke describes Congress as the “grandest show we have had for years.”
Benecke kept exhaustive business records and records of his correspondence, even copyrighting his system of letter register in 1873. He filled over fifty volumes of letterbooks alone. In December of 1895, he prided himself on his voluminous output saying, “I...receive and mail more letters than any one person in this town!”
His clothes were tailor made and he corresponded frequently with his tailors in Jefferson City and St. Louis. At the age of 69, he was 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighed 204 pounds, and was still sporting a beard and mustache.
He and his wife, Josephine, traveled to Germany in the fall of 1907 and Josephine died in November of the following year. Confined to his home by ill health for most of 1918 and 1919, he prepared several lawsuits and worked on numerous title abstracts. He died the summer of 1919.
LOUIS A. BENECKE (1873- ). Louis A. Benecke was born December 25, 1873, the eldest son of Louis and Josephine Benecke. He was a graduate of Washington University, 1896, and Benton Law School, 1901. His first employment was with Stupp Brothers Bridge and Iron Company, St. Louis, 1896. He was an instructor at the Manual Training School, Washington University; worked for his uncle Robert at the Cramer Dry Plate Works, testing plates; and became vice president of the Cupples Woodenware Company, St. Louis. He married Juliet Sharp in 1920.
Louis was a prolific writer. His letters to his parents while a student at Washington University and Benton Law School are in the correspondence section of his father Louis's papers. His letters to his brother, Ruby Waldo, are in the section containing Ruby's papers. He kept on top of the Benecke family finances, also corresponding with his sister, Lucia, in Chicago, her husband and sons, and his niece Alma, daughter of his sister, Dora. These letters are also in Ruby W. Benecke's papers as his sister and niece mailed them to Ruby after receiving and reading them.
OTTO K. BENECKE (1875-1957). Otto K. Benecke was born October 16, 1875, second son of Louis and Josephine Benecke. As a youth, he was on the Brunswick baseball team. He was a registered pharmacist in Brunswick, a Justice of the Peace, and served as assistant postmaster and postmaster for eight years. In 1900 he was commissioned as a deputy game and fish warden. He served as a librarian for the Brunswick Library Association, and also wrote weather reports for the Brunswicker. Music was an interest, and he played in the Brunswick Band and was a musical instrument dealer. He also helped with his father's insurance business. He died in 1957.
His papers include his commission as game and fish warden, personal and political correspondence, a deed and land abstract, Justice of the Peace case files and papers, 1936-1940, and his postmaster papers. His papers are in the Chariton County and City of Brunswick series of the collection.
RUBY W. BENECKE (1884-1973). Waldo Theodore (Ruby W.) Benecke was born in Brunswick, Missouri, September 22, 1884, to Louis and Josephine Benecke. He was educated in the public schools of Brunswick, was a graduate of Smith Academy, St. Louis; Washington University; and St. Louis Law School. Admitted to the bar in 1906, he joined his father in partnership in the firm of Benecke and Benecke. The firm retained the name after his father's death in 1919.
Benecke also joined his father in the insurance and real estate business. Their insurance agency had three employees. After his father's death, Benecke continued to operate the agencies as well as various dealerships including Maxwell cars and trucks, Metz cars, Moline tractors, and Goodrich Tires, 1909-1924; Grebe and Silver Marshall radios, 1924-1932; and Williams Oil-O-Matic Heating in partnership with R.V. Bartow, 1925-[1929].
A Republican, he was a candidate for prosecuting attorney in 1912; a candidate for state representative in 1940, 1944, and 1946; and served as a member of a statewide committee for a one-house legislature. He served as Chairman, Chariton County Central Committee, 12 years; 2nd Congressional District Committee, six years; and the 6th Senatorial District Committee, six years. Benecke made the motion to admit women to membership in the State Republican Committee. His niece Alma Benecke Sasse was state chairman of the Women's Republican Committee.
In 1943 he was a 6th Senatorial District delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He served as secretary-treasurer of the Constitutional Convention Association, 1947-1963, and was chairman of the special planning committee for the first annual meeting.
Benecke was Brunswick City Attorney, 1910-1914; U.S. Commissioner, Northern Division, Eastern District, Missouri. 1913-1934; Conciliation Commissioner, Chariton County, 1934-1943; Prosecuting Attorney, Chariton County, 1942-1943; member and treasurer of the 12th Judicial Circuit Bar Association; member and secretary-treasurer of the Chariton County Bar Association; and served as a member of the Missouri Bar Association's Committee on State and Local Taxation and chaired the committee in 1948-1949.
He was chairman of numerous charity drives, and vice chairman of the Chariton County Local Welfare Council, 1922. He was assistant postmaster, 1911-1915, and postmaster, 1921-1934, U.S. Post Office, Brunswick. He and his brother, Otto were meteorological reporters for the U.S. Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau.
As a child he was baptized “Waldo Theodore Benecke” in the Lutheran Church, but he joined the Episcopal Church when he married Eleanor Floy Magruder, daughter of W. Magruder, Sr., October 25, 1911. They had one son, Louis Waldo “Wally”, and one daughter, Joanna Josephine. Benecke died in 1973.
LOUIS WALDO BENECKE (1913- ). Louis Waldo Benecke was born December 28, 1913, son of Ruby Waldo and Eleanor Magruder Benecke. A 1932 graduate of Junior College, New Mexico Military Institute, Roswell, New Mexico, he attended the University of Wisconsin, earned an A.B. degree and a law degree from the University of Missouri, passing the bar in October 1938. He was a 1st lieutenant in the Army Reserves. He worked with his father in the firm of Benecke and Benecke.
Louis's papers include his Army extension course materials and maps; law school notes; 1939 yearbook; case files and papers as a Chariton County Justice of the Peace, 1940-1946; correspondence; and miscellaneous items.
ROBERT BENECKE (1835-1903). Robert Benecke, older brother of Louis, was born in the town of Braunschweig, Stiege, Duchy of Brunswick, 1835. A graduate of Blankenburg College, he wished to be a civil engineer. He was a volunteer in the German Brunswick Army. After immigrating with his family in 1856, he opened a photo gallery in Brunswick and, later, one in St. Louis at 4th and Market. As a pioneer photographer, he contributed many articles to photo journals and publications, editing a column “Echoes from Europe” in the St. Louis Photographer. He was the first photographer west of the Mississippi who made artotypes. His picture of Governor Sterling Price adorned many publications. Several of Robert's artotypes are in the collection.
During the Civil War he served in the 18th Regiment, Missouri Volunteers. He married Mary Koenig of St. Louis. They had four children: Olga (Mrs. A.L. Schuster), Anna (Mrs. H. Poss), Josephine (Mrs. F. Usher) and Theodore. At the time of his death in 1903 he was superintendent of the G. Cramer Dry Plate Company, St. Louis. An obituary appears in V. 57.
Robert and his brother, Louis, corresponded extensively, and their letters, written in German, are in Louis Benecke's correspondence and letterbooks. Robert's son, Theo, also wrote occasionally to his uncle Louis.
JOSEPHINE AMERLAN BENECKE (1845-1908). Josephine Amerlan was born in 1845 in Prussia. On June 23, 1868 she married Louis Benecke in New York at the Prescott House, the Reverend Foersch officiating. She and Louis had seven children, two dying in infancy. She is mentioned frequently in family correspondence, and the collection includes her letters, written in German, to her husband and her daughter, Lucia. There are letters, also written in German, to Josephine from her sisters, Frieda and Auguste, and other relatives still living in Germany, 1858-1909. Her brothers Otto, a watchmaker, jeweler, and optician; and Hugo, lived in the U.S., and corresponded frequently with her husband, Louis.
DORA BENECKE SASSE (1869-1928). Dora Benecke was born December 3, 1869, the daughter of Louis and Josephine Benecke. She married Frederick Sasse, a Brunswick attorney, and they had a daughter, Alma. Dora attended Pritchett Institute, Glasgow, and wrote children's books. Letters to her family, photographs, and school items are in the collection. She died September 6, 1928.
LUCIA (LUCY) BENECKE ZILLMAN. Lucia Benecke was the daughter of Louis and Josephine Benecke. She married Christian C.H. Zillman, a Chicago attorney. They had four sons: Theodore, Dean of Men, University of Wisconsin; Christian; Bill; and Louis, a chiropractor. Lucia attended the Pritchett Institute, Glasgow, studied medicine under German scientists and boarded with a German family in St. Louis. Her poetry was published in the Midland Poetry Review during the 1940s. Photographs, newspaper clippings, letters to her family, and letters written to her in German from her mother, and from her Aunt Freida in Germany are in the collection.
ALMA SASSE. Alma Sasse was the daughter of Dora and Frederick Sasse, and the granddaughter of Louis and Josephine Benecke. She attended Vassar, and was a suffragist, traveling to Texas, New York, and Washington, D.C. She was Chairman, Women's Division, Missouri Republican State Committee. At a Kansas City Lincoln Day Banquet in 1922, she was the only woman on the program. There are letters to her grandfather; her uncle, Ruby W. Benecke; and other family members; newspaper clippings, photographs and school items in the collection.
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
The Beneckes immigrated from Germany in 1856 and settled in Brunswick, Missouri. This collection of their family papers is invaluable for research in black history; business, ethnic, local, military, political, social, and women's history; and for genealogists. The collection chronicles the lives, careers, and family relationships of four generations of Beneckes. The bulk of the papers are those of Louis Benecke and his son, Ruby W. Benecke.
The collection is divided into ten series:
Descriptions of each series can be found in the folder list.
Additional subjects for research are agriculture, city and county government, colored schools, the depression, diplomacy, education, landlord and tenant relationships, the media, medicine and medical care, pension legislation, development of Missouri's Republican party, railroad expansion, religion, and the war years of the 1910s and 1940s.
INDEX TERMS
There are over ten thousand index terms for this collection. Please contact the reference staff to see if this collection has specific references you are interested in researching.