Dye Business, Education, and Health (Lisonbee Account 2)

I continue on with Eda’s account:

“My grandfather was the first person in America to dye human hair. He came just in time for the Civil War in American and he dyed the material for the northern soldiers uniforms during the war. Grandmother’s first husband had a dying business, he died, Frederick John Kohlhepp was one of his employees[.] He married his former boses daughter and then he owned the dying establishment.

My father was educated in a private school where he was taught German half the day and English the other half. In his home the children spoke English while the parents answered them in German. His people weree of the finest class, and they came from the fest families of Europe. The VonRosens of France, Abies from Germany, and the Juesiers from Switzerland. [1]

My fahter never got along well with his father. His father wanted him to carry on his business, he was the only son, which by then had grown into quite a large concern, the family became very wealthy from their dying business. Then my father became ill, finally a doctor advised my grandmother that her son would never live to see 20 years because he had “consumption.” The damp climate of Boston the Dr. told the mother was very bad for his health. So at a very early age, he always said 17, he left school and headed out West.”

Comments:

1. It is an interesting oral history that Johann Friedrich (Fred’s father) dyed the uniforms for the civil war. It is a little surprising that Johann could set up a factory and become prominent enough for the Northern troops to employ his work for uniforms. Of course, I do not know when he moved to Boston. He lived in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania beforehand. They were not in Boston at least by 1855 when Amelia was born. I suppose it’s possible, but I wonder how that information could possibly be verified. I could learn some general information about Boston during the Civil War, but beyond this it would be quite difficult. I wonder what information or papers is available about long dead companies, besides just being in directories and advertisements. But a business directory doesn’t say much. For instance, I found Johann’s business in the 1871 Jamaica Plains business directory.


All it tells you is the name of the business “Jamaica Plain dye house” and that it was located on Brookside Avenue. It is nice to be able to plot where it would have been on a 1870s Boston map, but you can’t tell about what sort of business they did. This makes substantiating the claims about hair dying and soldiers’ uniforms quite difficult.

2. The statement about Johann marrying the former boss’ daughter to own the dying establishment has been recorded in other records too. I believe Minerva or my Grandmother (Laurie) wrote an elaborate description of the situation that may have been an oral history or their speculation about what happened. I will get to those records later.

3. Fred’s education: I think Eda’s account here is the only document where Fred is described as attending a private school where he learned German and English, or how languages were used in the home. Fred’s education is problematic since many documents claim different things; it will be difficult to pin down.

4. Eda claims he came from some of the best families in Europe: how is this claim made? How does she know what are good European families? All of our Abes are from Saxony/Germany as far as we can go back in 1502. By Juesiers, Eda must mean the Heuszers who we have located in Hessen, Germany. As for the Von Rosens, I need to check up on them in another PAF.

5. There has been a lot of mythology on Fred’s consumption. True, it seems he died of it; it killed a lot of people. But how did Fred live relatively well with consumption until the age of 57? People have claimed he also contracted it on his mission in 1905, but he lived another 12 years. I doubt the historicity of these claims. Regardless, there was definitely a movement going on with transcendental idealism in Thoreau and also in the Boston climate of the need to get out into nature for the good of one’s lungs. People feared their health when they were around industrialized cities. I read in some education books on Boston schooling from Fred’s time period on children’s needs to get out of the city for fresh air. I will have to locate my source there and place it up, and place some of Thoreau’s statements.