Frederick Trump, an American businessman of German descent, found the US President. He was born in 1869 in the town of Calstadt, Germany, to a poor family, which forced him to work as a barber after the death of his father, before he decided to immigrate to in October 1885 to escape military service.
Frederick moved to the American West, and decided to open restaurants and hotels, taking advantage of the prosperity of gold mining areas. He was able to collect a fortune from his business, so he decided to return to Germany and settle with his family, before he was expelled from it and returned to the United States, where he died in 1918.
Birth and upbringing
Frederick Trump (Friedrich in German) was born on March 14, 1869, in the town of Calstadt, southwest Germany, to a poor family that relied on growing grapes on a small farm they owned, before they fell into debt following the death of the head of their family, Johannes Trump, and Frederick was 8 years old at the time.
Due to Frederick’s young age and his constant suffering from illness, his mother decided to send him to a nearby town to learn a profession to make a living. So he took up barbering and worked daily in a barbershop without vacations for two and a half years. After mastering the profession, he returned to his town to open his own salon, but he discovered that there was another barber, in a small town that did not accommodate barbers.
Frederick believed that remaining in his hometown as a diaspora would condemn him to a hard life and poverty, and this coincided with his entering the compulsory age for service in the German army, so he decided to escape conscription and flee the country completely.
Related Post
Immigration to America
On one night in October 1885, Frederick fled his hometown, leaving behind a farewell letter to his mother, and went to the city of Bremen, booked a one-way ticket, and boarded the SS Eder heading to the United States, where his sister, Catherine, who preceded him, lived. There a year ago.
Frederick, then 16 years old, sailed across the North Atlantic Oceanon a 10-day journey, along with hundreds of other migrants who were hoping to find a better life for themselves in the diaspora.
Frederick settled with his sister Catherine in Manhattan, New York, lived next to the Germans, began working as a barber, and began saving his money to open his own business.
Years later, Frederick headed west to Seattle, the seat of King County in the state of Washington, in 1891. He bought a restaurant on a street known for its liquor trade and prostitution, renovated it and opened it under the name “The Dairy Restaurant.” In 1892, Frederick obtained American citizenship and changed his name from Friedrich to Frederick.
In 1894, Frederick headed to the Monte Cristo area in Washington, after news spread about the presence of gold there, and opened a hotel there, before deciding to return to Seattle years later and sell his property.
Frederick then moved to Canada, where he opened a chain of hotels and restaurants with a partner in the District of Columbia and the city of Whitehorse, and made a fortune providing gambling and prostitution services.
Expulsion from Germany
By 1901, Frederick had amassed a large fortune, so he decided to return to his hometown, married Elizabeth Christ, and planned to settle in Germany.
Frederick did not stay in Germany long, as the German authorities decided to expel him and his wife from the country, and revoke their citizenship, on charges of leaving Germany illegally and evading taxes and compulsory military service, so they returned to New York.
The couple lived in a German neighborhood in the south of the Bronx in New York, and they had three children, including Fred Trump, the father of US President Donald Trump, who grew up and became one of the most successful young businessmen in the city.
His death
Frederick worked for years in the hotel industry until he died of influenza in 1918, at the age of 49, and left behind a fortune estimated at about 510 thousand US dollars to his wife and children.
