Franz-Joseph Trefzger born December 3, 1808
in Wehr, Baden
“Franz-Joseph Trefzger, a teacher, was an advocate of the idea of a German National Parliament to build a German federation (of individual German states plus Austria-Hungary) in the year 1848. This idea died, because the German Royal Princes were opposed to the idea and suppressed the movement.
In 1849 there was a revolt in Baden which found wide support of the population. The Grand-Duke had to flee. He obtained the help of the Prussian troops who then suppressed the uprising.
Franz-Joseph Trefzger, along with the retreating armed insurgents, was forced into Switzerland. He refused to request mercy from the Grand-Duke and like many other revolutionaries, leaving wife and child behind, left for North America.
His wife and children moved to her home in Burkheim at Kaiserstuhl (a mountain close to
Freiburg).
One of his sons Joseph Ludwig was a woodworker, or wood-turner, who married in 1869, moved to Rastatt in 1872 where he established himself and raised his family.”
Note: The above is from a German chart of ancestors of Erich Johannes Trefzger who lives in Germany. (Charts of Ancestors had to be submitted to the Nazis in the 1930s.)
Comment: Records from the Catholic Church in Wehr show that Franz Joseph Trefzger and Maria Anna actually had 8 children (3 girls and 5 boys) with the last son Hurkulus Allen Trefzger born 5/25/1850.
Franz Joseph Trefzger actually had to leave his pregnant wife and seven children.
We believe that Franz Joseph did not stay in Switzerland, but came to America with his brother Martin and his family in 1851. However we have not been able to find any record of Franz-Joseph in the U.S.A..