Paul Follen

Paul Follen (also Follenius; May 5, 1799 – October 3, 1844) was a German-American attorney and farmer, who had founded the Gießener Auswanderungsgesellschaft ("Gießen Emigration Society").

He was born at Gießen, in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, to Christoph Follen (1759-1833) and Rosine Follen (1766–1799). His father was a counselor-at-law and judge. He was the brother of August Ludwig Follen and Charles Follen, and the uncle of the biologist Karl Vogt. During his studies at the University of Gießen he made friend with Friedrich Muench and in 1825 married his sister Maria.

Naturalist Gottfried Duden, a German attorney, settled on the north side of the Missouri River along Lake Creek in 1824. He was investigating the possibilities of settlement in the area by his countrymen. In 1827 he returned to Germany, which he felt was overpopulated. There he published a glowing “Eine Reise zu den westlichen Staaten von Nordamerika (A Journey to the Western states of North America)” in 1829.

The romantic description of the free life in the US motivated the protestant minister Friedrich Münch and the attorney Paul Follen to found 1833 the Gießener Auswanderungsgesellschaft. Both had participated in the outlawed republican and democratic movements in Germany in the wake of the French July Revolution of 1832. As there was no immediate hope for success, they intended to establish a "new and free Germany in the great North American Republic" to serve as model for a future German republic.

Already in 1834 they led 500 German settlers into Missouri. They soon realised that the plan for a separate federal state would remain an Utopia. They settled in the German populated Dutzow in Warren County, Missouri not far from the former farm of Gottfried Duden.

Follen died rather young in Dutzow. His friend Muench moved in 1859 to Augusta, Missouri, where he founded with his brother Georg the Mount Pleasant Winery. His son Dr. William Follenius (1829–1902) married Emilie, a daughter of his friend Friedrich Muench.

His brother Karl had emigrated to the US already in 1824.

References

*Paul Follen und Friedrich Münch: "Aufforderung und Erklärung in Betreff einer Auswanderung im Großen aus Teutschland in die nordamerikanischen Freistaate".