Marix, Adolph.—Rear Admiral U. S. N. Born at Dresden, Germany, 1848. Graduated Naval Academy 1868. Served on various European and Asiatic stations; Judge Advocate of “Maine” court of inquiry; Captain of port of Manila, 1901-03; commanded “Scorpion” during Spanish-American war and was promoted for conspicuous bravery; chairman Lighthouse Board, retired May 10, 1910. Died in 1919.
Massachusetts Bay Colony Contained Germans.
Massachusetts Bay Colony Contained Germans.—The first Germans in New England arrived, as far as we know, with the founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. The proof of this fact, as well as the influence of this first small group, is found in one of the most important pamphlets published in connection with New England colonization, “The Planter’s Plea” (1630). This tract, published in London shortly after the departure of Winthrop’s Puritan fleet, and supposed to have been written by John White, the “patriarch of Dorchester,” and the “father of Massachusetts Bay Colony,” contains the following statement: “It is not improbable that partly for their sakes, and partly for respect to some Germans that are gone over with them, and more that intend to follow after, even those which otherwise would not much desire innovation, of themselves yet for maintaining of peace and unity (the only solder of a weak, unsettled body) will be won to consent to some variations from the forms and customs of our church.”
Some of the early New England Germans reached there via New Amsterdam; we find them in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Boston, etc. In 1661 the ship surgeon, Felix Christian Spoeri, of Switzerland, paid a visit to Rhode Island. His narrative of New England (“Amerikanische Reisebeschreibung Nach den Caribes Inseln und Neu Engelland”) is one of the few of German pen on early American colonial times still extant—(From “First Germans in North America and the German Element of New Netherland,” by Otto Lohr, G. E. Stechert & Co., New York, 1912.)
Massow, Baron Von.
Massow, Baron Von.—Member of Mosby’s Men on the Confederate side during Civil War. According to a statement of Gen. John S. Mosby, Baron von Massow joined his command on coming to this country from Prussia, where he was attached to the general staff; was severely wounded in an engagement with a California regiment in Fairfax County near Washington, D. C., on which occasion he displayed conspicuous gallantry. He was then discharged and returned to Germany, serving later in the Austro-Prussian and the Franco-Prussian wars. The last that Col. Mosby heard of him wasthat he was commanding the Ninth Corps in the German army. (From a statement of Gen. Mosby, Feb. 12, 1901.)
McNeill, Walter S.
McNeill, Walter S.—Prominent lawyer and law lecturer at Richmond, Va., discussing the “Burgerliches Gesetzbuch,” which is the codified common law of Germany, says:
“As a crystallization of human, not divine, justice, let our lawyers compare the German Code with the Federal statutes and decisions, or the legislative or judicial law of any of our States. Then we can get at something definite, not imaginary, concerning civil liberty in Germany.... The less said by way of comparing German with American criminal law the better.”