Heinrich Escher
Heinrich Escher ( born July 26, 1626 Zurich, † April 20, 1710 ) was a businessman, diplomat and mayor of Zurich.
Life
Heinrich Escher comes from the family of Zurich Escher from the glass. His parents were Cleophea Künzli, the daughter of Schultheissen of Winterthur, and Hans Conrad Escher, a wealthy merchant, Schultheiss at the City Court and Council member. Escher attended from 1633 to 1640 the Latin School in Zurich, then up to the year 1642 the boarding school of Montauban. He then worked one and a half years as an intern in trading houses in Lyon and Toulouse and entered as a trained businessman his father's textile trading business in Zurich. Around the year 1645 he married regulators Werdmüller (* 1625, † 1698 ), daughter of ironmonger Hans Jakob Werdmüller, at that time one of the wealthiest citizens of the city of Zurich.
Heinrich Escher made the chocolate in Switzerland known after he had tasted during a visit to Brussels in 1697 drinking chocolate.
Political career
1652, at the beginning of his political career, was Heinrich Escher representatives of the " guild zur Meisen " in the Grand Council ( twelve ) and 1663-1668 in the Small Council. In 1669 he was elected to the governor of Kyburg, 1676 Councilman free choice before he was from 1678 until his death mayor of the " Natal Council " (from Natale Domini, 25 December, official town council half).
1662 Escher participated in the founding of Commercial Directorate, an existing well into the 19th century Chamber of Commerce. As a representative of the merchants he was in 1663 together with Mayor Johann Heinrich Waser member of the Zurich delegation to the renewal of pay Alliance Zurich with Louis XIV in Paris, where he campaigned for customs freedoms and commercial privileges of the merchants, who were soon dissipated by Colbert's mercantilist customs reforms. After the threat of Geneva and of recorded there Waldenses and Huguenots of France Escher was sent along with the Bernese Venner Niklaus Dachselhofer to the court of Louis XIV, to represent the interests of the Protestant Estates Zurich and Bern and the allied state of Geneva. The construction of the fortress Hüningen 1679 and the capture of Strasbourg in 1681, which was allied with Zurich and Bern, stressed the relationship with France rapidly, especially Geneva and Mulhouse have been further harassed. To this end, the federal troops in France were asked continually worse. Under Escher Zurich therefore closed in 1693 with the Protestant Netherlands, an alliance Sold by which the monopoly of France was broken on reformed mercenaries. In the Basel unrest in 1691 the federal places were invited to mediate. Zurich and Mayor Escher would have kept the matter very dear Reformed hands, for fear of the Catholic cantons might otherwise receive a weight that could have a negative impact on the country -peaceful disputes.
Heinrich Escher contributed significantly to a change in the relationship between the evangelical stands ( cantons ) of the Old Confederation and the Kingdom of France, by a shift in the primacy of politics has been achieved by the denomination as a determining factor to pragmatic and economic criteria in political action.