F.W. Johannpeter and 1883 Bar Incident

Frederick William Johannpeter (1839 – 1915) was my second great grandfather on my mother’s side.  He died 4 months before the birth of his grandson, Gilbert P. Ellis, who was my grandfather.

Since he died before my grandfather was born, I had very limited information on him, when I started researching the family history.  Grandpa didn’t have any verbal history on his grandparents.  He lived with F.W.’s widow, Johanna, or “Hannah”, after Grandpa’s father died but she passed away when Grandpa was five years old.

I did have one picture of F.W. and Johanna in a window behind my great grandparents William and Caroline “Lee” Ellis on their wedding day in 1912.  My mother had this picture in a group of family pictures she had from Great Grandma Lee, F.W.’s youngest daughter Caroline Leah “Lee” Ellis nee Johannpeter.  Everything I know about F.W. is from official sources and a few newspaper articles.

F.W. was born in Bielefeld, Germany on January 7, 1839.  He married Johanna Grieve on December 23, 1866.  F.W. was 27.  Johanna was 23.  A year later, their oldest son Gustave was born in Germany.

In 1868, the family moved to the United States and settle in St. Charles, Missouri.  Their remaining 8 children, including Great Grandma Lee, the second youngest, were born in St. Charles between 1869 and 1883.

It appears F.W. went by Frederick, Fred, William and most frequently in official documents and one of the two newspaper articles, F.W. Johannpeter.  A few years ago, I found a reference to a F.W. Johannpeter being involved in a political brawl in 1883.  The article didn’t have enough information to confirm it was my second great grandfather, so I initially dismissed it.  Unfortunately, I cannot find the original article.

However, I recently found a St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper article, which contained enough information that I feel comfortable it was F.W., who was involved.  In 1883, the 44-year-old F.W. was running for St. Charles City Council from the 3rd Ward.  While attending a local tavern, he began arguing with another unnamed “prominent politician”.  It was not one of his opponents.

The prominent politician offered several opinions, which were not well received by F.W.  A heated exchange occurred between the men until F.W. decided things had gone far enough.  F.W. ended the exchange by bringing his beer mug down on the prominent politician’s head.

F.W. decided not to wait for the local police to intervene and exited the premises.  The man didn’t press charges but the bad publicity couldn’t have helped F.W.’s campaign.  One of his two opponents won the election.  F.W. withdrew from politics and managed to avoid this type of publicity for the remainder of his life.

Most of the Johannpeters moved from St. Charles to North St. Louis in the early 1910s.  F.W. died of heart disease while living on North 19th Street on February 21, 1915.  F.W. was 76 years old.

People often tell you not to argue politics or religion.  Now you know why.

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Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 2, 1883 edition, p. 8

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