Biographical Sketch of Ferdinand Muench, Franklin County, Missouri

>From "History of Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Crawford and 
Gasconade Counties", Biographical Appendix, Goodspeed Publishing 
Company, 1888.

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Ferdinand Muench, a farmer, stock raiser and horticulturist of St. 
John's Township, was born in Warren County in 1841, and is a son of
Hon. Frederick and Louisa (Fritz) Muench, natives of Hesse-Darmstadt,
Germany, born in 1799 and 1812, respectively.  The parents were marr-
ied about 1831, and in 1834 came to the United States, settling in
Warren County, Mo., where the father died in 1881, and the mother in
1887.  Mr. Muench was a man of intelligence and ability, and was very
popular among the Germans and Americans of his adopted State.  From
1862 to 1866 he served as a member of the State Senate, and was one 
of the ablest members of that body; he also held various minor offices
and was an able correspondent to some of the leading periodicals of 
the country, being the author of a number of works on horticulture,
religion, etc., and for a number of years he acted as editor of the
horticulture department of the New York "Agriculturist".  He devoted
his attention almost exclusively to his literary work, which ranked
among the ablest and most practicable of the kind produced in the
country; he was a prominent citizen of Warren County for fifty years.
Two of his sons served in the Union army, one of them falling at the
battle of Wilson's Creek.  He was a stanch Republican, and earnestly 
defended its principles and the Union through his writings; he was
a delegate to the Republican National Convention which nominated
Abraham Lincoln, and was one of the first Germans to locate in Warren
County, being at the head of a company of his people who intended to
form a colony in Missouri, but on reaching this country abandoned the
idea.  He was for many years a minister of the gospel, as were his 
ancestors for several generations.  Ferdinand Muench was reared at
home, attending the district school a few months each year, and the
private institution of his father.  At the breaking out of the war he
enlisted in Company I, Third Missouri Infantry, for three months,
participating in the battle of Wilson's Creek and various minor en-
gagements.  He subsequently enrolled in Company A, Fifty-ninth Enroll-
ed Missouri Militia as first lieutenant, serving until 1864, when he
again joined the United States service in Company C, Forty-ninth Miss-
ouri Volunteer Infantry, operated in Missouri and all the Mississippi
River States to the Gulf, participated in the siege of Mobile, Ala., 
and was mustered out at St. Louis, in August, 1865.  In 1866 he married
Miss Emma, daughter of Charley and Bernhardine Himburg, early settlers
of Franklin County, where Mrs. Muench was born.  They are the parents
of six children, viz.: Paula L., Sophia M., Hugo C., Walter L., Cora I.
and Julius F. F.  The same year of his marriage Mr. Muench settled one
mile below Dundee, where he has a fine and well improved farm of eighty
four acres.  Politically a Republican, he cast his first vote for Lin-
coln in 1864.  He is a member of the G. A. R.

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