Republic of Money: "At play in the fields of the lord"

Peter Matthiessen, writer & former CIA agent:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Matthiessen



Founder (1953) of the influential Paris Review:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paris_Review





Agent Peter's Matthiessen ancestors came from Denmark & settled in Altona, Germany, now a suburb of Hamburg, then a Danish surzerainty (1640-1864). Nearby Hamburg was then a free Imperial City & a member of the Hanseatic League. The area was a center of international trade & finance, & the Matthiessens were among its leading citizens.

Matthiessens had been royal governors of the North Frisian islands of Fohr & Sylt (then Danish) & apparently arrived in Altona sometime in the 1700s, where they immediately feature as merchants & financiers.


I. Johann Conrad Matthiessen (1751)

One of the most high-profile was Johann Conrad Matthiessen (1751-1822). He was head of Matthiessen & Sillem, an international financial & trading house founded by his father.

He was a supporter (& probably funder) of revolutionary activity, notably the Girondist faction in the French Revolution & the "United Irishmen" of the 1798 Rebellion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1798

He was part of a circle of upper-class Hamburg/Altona revolutionary enthusiasts whose enthusiasm cooled when the Terror began & the Girondists were ousted.

Napoleon Bonaparte's first wife, Josephine de Beauharnaise, borrowed money from him before her marriage...



http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RSDxeV_h_q8J:www.sillem-family.com/josephine-en.html+matthiessen+josephine+de+beauharnaise&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

He married the neice of this well-connected lady involved in revolutionary politics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%A9phanie_F%C3%A9licit%C3%A9_Ducrest_de_St-Albin,_comtesse_de_Genlis



II. Erard Adoph Matthiessen (1902)

Peter Matthiessen's father was Erard Adoph Matthiessen, Yale 1922, an architect:

http://books.google.com/books?id=YC7OAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=%22Erard+Adolph+Matthiessen%22+yale&source=bl&ots=SpmnOcvZto&sig=z8GgNHtwz5_RrjOw8oXjd0H3iy8&hl=en&ei=KgHhS9vmMIygswP5_L39BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false



Florimond Duke house, Green's Farms (Westport)
Erard Matthiessen, 1937

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/23/nyregion/erard-matthiessen-97-new-york-architect.html?pagewanted=1



III. Erard Adolph Matthiessen (1763)

However, the first (?) Erard (Erhardt) Adolph Matthiessen was born in Altona in 1763 (d. 1831). He studied law at University of Gottingen, worked in the Imperial Courts & government, was an auditor for the Imperial Bank, & eventually "head of a large firm of merchants," the trading company MatthiessenscheHandlung. He was likely a brother (or cousin) of Johann Conrad Matthiessen.



IV. Erard Adolph Matthiessen (1825)

His descendant (grandson?) Erard Adolph Matthiessen (1825) was a banker.

This (1825) Erard Adolph was "one of a family of remarkable brothers," two of whom emigrated from Altona to the US as young men.



V. Frederick Wilhelm Matthiessen (1835)

The youngest of the Matthiessen brothers was Frederick Wilhelm Matthiessen. He came to Illinois with his friend, Edward Carl Hegeler, who was the son of a rich manufacturer. Hegeler was sent to the US by his father "to extend the family business," & presumably the Matthiessen interest was similar.

Together the two young men founded the Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc Company, one of the earliest zinc businesses in the US, & made their fortunes supplying zinc for arms during the Civil War. It's now a Superfund site:

http://cfpub.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0507364

http://www.hegelercarus.org/history/mh_zinc.html


Matthiessen later took over & successfully reorganized the bankrupt Western Clock Manufacturing Co (Westclox/"Big Ben" clocks).

http://clockhistory.com/westclox/company/dates/





VI. Francis Otto Matthiessen (1902)

Francis Otto Matthiessen, the literary critic & gay icon, Yale, Skull & Bones 1923, was Frederick Wilhelm's grandson:



http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/57b6ddc6949d2344_landing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FO_Matthiessen



FW'd lover was painter Russell Cheney, Skull & Bones 1904, of the Cheney Brothers silk family; Cheney family = a S&B sinecure:



http://www.russellcheney.com/heard.pdf

http://www.textilehistory.org/CheneyBrothersSilk.html


James S. Bush (S&B 1922), Prescott Bush's brother, was an usher at cousin Ward Cheney's (S&B 1922) wedding.

http://www.smokershistory.com/Bush.html


FO Matthiessen gave $15K to his friend Paul Sweezy to found the socialist Monthly Review:



Sweezy also a prep school type (Phillips Exeter, Harvard)


FO Matthiesen's death was suicide, an unusual one:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1950/4/1/f-o-matthiessen-plunges-to-death/



VI. Francis Otto Matthiessen (1833)

The next of EA Matthiessen's (1825) brothers was Francis Otto, for whom the literary critic (1902) was named. He came to the US when he was in his twenties & founded a sugar refining company, Matthiessen & Wiechers, later Matthiessen & Co., after involvement in the sugar industry in Germany.

Evolving from that business, he founded a glucose manufacturing business (Chicago Sugar Refining) with partners Cyrus McCormick (McCormick reaper family of Illinois), Marshall Field (department store family), & others. F.O. brought his older brother Erard Adolph (1825 above, by then retired from banking in Germany) to the US to manage his glucose interests.

In 1887 Matthiessen's business merged with several others, notably the Havemeyer sugar interests, to form the American Sugar Refining Company, or "Sugar Trust," which by 1907 "owned or controlled 98% of the sugar refining capacity in the US". Matthiessen was a Director from 1887 until 1899. It became known as Domino's sugar in 1900.

Matthiessen was reputedly the "largest inside holder of Sugar Trust inside stock," and also a large holder in the "Glucose Trust" (in which Rockefeller's Standard Oil was also a major participant).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Trust

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Osborne_Havemeyer

http://books.google.com/books?id=PVEXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA572&lpg=PA572&dq=%22glucose+trust%22&source=bl&ots=KgSLYJg0R9&sig=HFfao-M3k2fEU5_18YKBL8yYoGU&hl=en&ei=3-bgS8DsFYnYtgO9mqiDBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBAQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22glucose%20trust%22&f=false



VII. Conrad Matthiessen (1865)

The "Glucose Trust" had "between 53 to 90% of production," & included corn syrup, e.g. Karo. Erard Adolph's son Conrad (b 1865) continued some of this business:

http://boards.ancestry.com.au/surnames.matthiessen/5.6.7.9.12/mb.ashx





Corn Products Refining Co. formed through a merger of leading US corn refiners:

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:p9unsJhOeBQJ:www.cornproducts.com/overview/history/History_Brief.pdf+Corn+Products+Refining+Co.&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiIiwWqY62bbzezLguFAAaddfG6lWOOvQ-t6gHm54Jd9FGqBM5HsGh9BDKhDMbr1P87WK1UIZtTTGCf2fcbXs8tekuPFfoQTOct8RWjztvZojqagjpGKzmHvzBk16ygZm1IK_oF&sig=AHIEtbROZD5rv6i_bmSD36aQdsqNM_wopQ

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2628.html

So there were probably Matthiessens involved in the development of the high fructose corn syrup market:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Sugar-and-Related-Sweetener-Markets/George-C-Matthiessen/e/9780851996448/



Conrad married his first cousin, his uncle Frederick William's daughter Eda. There was possibly a reason other than love for this first cousin marriage. Sugar baron FO Matthiessen died without heirs except for his wife, & upon her death, his very large estate went to his brothers (& on down to their children, including Conrad & Eda).

Conrad & Eda produced Peter Matthiessen's architect father Erard Adolph Matthiessen (1902-2000), who then produced Peter in 1927.



Coda:

The sugar business involved FO Matthiessen with a lot of high-profile folks (among them the Welsh ancestors of the Dulles brothers)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7346780&mesg_id=7346780

& a lot of far-flung places (e.g. Cuba, Philippines) where the CIA later also had interests.

Though it was after FO Matthiesen's day, here in 1931 we find Havemeyer (sugar), George Herbert Walker (finance), & a bunch of other big shots in 1931, disposing of part of the old sugar empire:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,846962,00.html?iid=chix-sphere

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7346780&mesg_id=7346780

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hannah%20Bell/111

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hannah%20Bell/110

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hannah%20Bell/106

etc.

I'm not really interested enough to spend an hour reading all of that to guess your point.

Historically, the numbers of the wealthy elite in Western society are small. More so than today. You're bound to find endless connections in their family history and business dealings. Is that all you're getting at?

the money & connections endure.

If you did this yourself it took some time. I don't know why you'd spend all this time and then be so evasive when asked a simple question about what point you're making.

Yes, the small circle of super rich and royal families are fairly interwoven over the last several hundred years. meh

question is snarky?

not interested enough to read? then don't, i don't care. but i wonder why you even bothered to mention it, since you find the topic so uninteresting & obvious.

big money lasts a long time.

:shrug:

Expropriate.

"I know nothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I know what I have seen, and what I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself. And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women both, unfortunately) who have no good in them--none. That there are people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there are people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of the way."

Dickens, Little Dorrit.

Thanks Hannah!