Friedrich von Gerolt
Joseph Friedrich Karl Freiherr von Gerolt ( born March 5, 1797 Bonn, † July 27, 1879 to Linz am Rhein) was royally Prussian Privy Council, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in the United States in Washington, DC
Family
Gerolt was the son of a German lawyer and politician Bernhard Franz Josef of Gerolt and his wife, Anna Catherine Josepha Caroline v. Bouget from Odenkirchen, born and descended from the Gerolt to which the coat of arms was already awarded on January 3, 1558 Prague were knighted on April 16, 1614 in Linz Castle in Austria by Emperor Matthias. He married on 28 August 1837 in Bonn Josephine Henriette Huberta Walter, daughter of Privy Councillor at the former Imperial Chamber Court in Wetzlar, Franz Martin Walter, and his wife Maria Anna de Noel.
Journey
With 16 years Gerolt took part in the wars of liberation. After that, he studied mining engineering and geology and was performed in 1823 as a mining office secretary in Düren. In March 1824 he traveled where he suspected handsome silver mines in Mexico. By King Friedrich Wilhelm III. he and his brothers were (now Castle Ockenfels ) invested in 1830 with the manor to Leyen in Ockenfels. In 1837 he was chargé d'affaires in Mexico and was the proposal of Alexander von Humboldt in 1844 appointed as Extraordinary Envoy and bevollm. Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia in the United States of America, where he was replaced in October 1848 by Friedrich Ludwig von Ronne. From 1849 to 1868, he was again sent as ambassador of Prussia to Washington, from 1868 to the Empire in 1871, he then worked for the North German Confederation as an envoy in Washington. In 1858 Gerolt was elevated to the Prussian baron.
Gerolt was continuous for 27 years as a diplomat in the United States and is still regarded today as the longest-serving ambassador of Germany to the United States. During his time in Washington, he had good contacts with many politicians. In the quarter century of his service Gerolt met the President James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant. Millard Fillmore was the only U.S. president, who visited in the 19th century Germany. In 1855, he met in Berlin with Alexander von Humboldt and King Frederick William IV together. During this time, 1.5 million German émigré to the United States and a total of 14 German consulates in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, St. Louis, Galveston, Savannah, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Louisville, Milwaukee, Chicago, Boston and New Bedford furnished.