Merck

1.Beginnings

Anyone who searches for the origins of what is now the major chemical-pharmaceutical firm Merck KGaA, known throughout the world, will find them not only among the mortars, vials, and balance scales of a small pharmacy in Darmstadt in the 17th century. Rather, the beginnings of the centuries-old company lie in the highly varied entrepreneurial approaches and strategies of the Merck family of Darmstadt. It is true that the pharmacy business always played a central role, but a deliberate marriage strategy and skillful money lending were just as important. Over a prolonged period of time, this created the financial basis that enabled them, at the start of the industrial age in Hesse, to take the first steps towards the successful establishment of a major pharmaceutical corporation.

1.1Origin of the family

Originally, the Merck family came from Hammelburg, where the birth of Jacob Merck (1520-1579) - as the son of Antonius Merck (1480-1532) - and his wife Anna, née Kuhn, is documented.[1] Individual references to roots of the family dating back to the fifteenth century, which have occasionally been made in the relevant literature, must be considered uncertain, if not speculative.[2] Of Jacob Merck it is known that he was active in the town council, had a second marriage to Amalia Hartlaub from Fulda, the daughter of Councilor Johann Hartlaub, and a third marriage to Katharina Wolff.[3] His son Johann Merck (1573-1642) entered into the service of the Councilor and Bailiff of the Riedesel family, Werner Crispinus, then fought as a soldier in the Habsburg army against the Turks in Croatia, and later made a reputation for himself in the town council (1601) and as mayor (1602) in Hammelburg.

Figure 2   The Ratsapotheke [City Council Pharmacy], where Jacob Friedrich Merck learned his trade, is still located in the City Hall of the City of Schweinfurt (bottom left). This wood engraving by an unknown artist shows the building as it was before 1856.

Despite this, he became the founder of the Schweinfurt line of the Merck family, for at the beginning of the 17th century, in 1604, the Lutheran family moved to the near-by Free Imperial City. The reason for this change of location was the attempt by Balthasar von Dernbach, territorial ruler of Hammelburg and Prince-Abbot of Fulda, to unify his territory along confessional lines in accordance with the stipulations of the Peace of Augsburg of 1555 ("cuius regio, eius religio"). In that Confessional Age, this resulted in the emigration of the steadfastly Lutheran citizens and residents, especially those who were officials.[4] Johann Merck (1573-1643) recorded these events in his notes on births and marriages in the family that he made from 1598 on: "When in August of 1602 the final judgment [of the Aulic Council] in the matter between Rev. Julius, Bishop of Würzburg, and Rev. Balthasar [von Dernbach], abbot of the (imperial) abbey of Fulda, was published, and the abbot thus succeeded in achieving restitution of the territory, the change of religion was then made throughout the Fulda territory, immediately upon his introduction, wherefore I and my wife and children, with God's help, moved, and with the support of honest people went to Wetzhausen to serve as bailiff there, and sold my property, wine and other, one after another in Hammelburg as best as I could, and went to enter my service on St. Peter's [29 June] of 1604."[5] In this way, Johann Merck exercised a right established in the Augsburg settlement of 1555. Following his conscience, he was allowed to emigrate, but had to sell his possessions within the Fulda territory.

So before finally settling in Schweinfurt, in 1604 Johann Merck entered the service of Lutheran knight Hans Eitel, steward of Wetzhausen. Since 1598 Johann had been married to Anna, daughter of Hammelburg town councilor Jakob Brehm, a leading representative of the Lutheran Party in Hammelburg. It was said of her later that she had been a very firm believer and that she had acquired this steadfastness in the Lutheran creed from her father.[6] This may be considered a determining and publicly perceived characteristic of this family of exiles of the early 17th century. In Wetzhausen, Johann Merck held the office of bailiff of the steward knight. Since he had been able to sell his family properties, he was able to secure his comparatively well-to-do existence there. He held the office in Wetzhausen for four years, but since, as Johann Merck remarks in his notes, "the appointment was at a somewhat low level, and all sorts of difficulties occurred, I yearned to have a permanent household again, and thereupon, in God's name, purchased from Hans Pfister's widow her house with the oriel at Schweinfurt on Zehntgasse, and resigned my office."[7]

However, in 1608, shortly before his departure from Wetzhausen, his first wife died, "whereupon on the following St. Peter's Day I went sorrowfully to Schweinfurt with three stepchildren and three children of my own, and set up a new household."[8] The very next year, in 1609, he made a "good match" again by marrying Anna Margarethe Ruprecht (1586-1612), the daughter of a certain Johann Ruprecht, doctor of law.[9] When his second wife also died a few years later, in 1612, he was able to secure his new position in Schweinfurt by his marriage in 1613 to Anna Maria Scheffer, the daughter of the former Küchenmeister to the prince-abbot and later Hammelburg cellarer, Johann Hartmann Scheffer, who also belonged to the circle of Lutheran exiles from Fulda and Würzburg who had gathered in Schweinfurt. In addition to the house on Zehntgasse, he had acquired the inn "at the sign of the Black Bear" in 1611. In the second half of the 16th century, this had become one of the leading inns of the Free Imperial City, serving, in particular, as accommodation for the nobles of the region surrounding the town. In 1622, Johann Merck sold the inn to one of his sons-in-law and devoted himself to the wine trade from then on. He had already been elected to the city council in 1609. In 1637, he was assigned to the office of the Imperial Bailiff [Reichsvogt], the emperor's deputy in the city,[10] a position that was always awarded to the eldest member of the board of mayors.[11] Thus, at the end of his life, Johann Merck was fully integrated into the bourgeois society of the Franconian Free Imperial City.

The governing circumstances of a bourgeois existence in the Early Modern Age become apparent here: advantageous marriages, the creation and utilization of networks, and the securing and enlarging of acquired wealth through lucrative positions and business transactions.[12] In addition, a behavior can be observed in Johann Merck that was a typical social practice of well-to-do citizens in that era: He lent out his money. Recipients often included nobles from the vicinity - probably due to yet unpaid bills at the inn - but the city also enjoyed a line of credit from Johann during the Thirty Years' War.

In subsequent years, he was able to marry off three daughters and four sons quite advantageously and to found a sibling network of servants to the rulers, including pastors and merchants active over a wide area who started their careers with a good education. Among these brothers and sisters, of importance for the history of the Merck firm is his eldest son from his second marriage, Georg (1611-1683), because he was the first to learn the apothecary's art in the Ratsapotheke in Schweinfurt,[13] and then especially Jacob Friedrich (1621-1678).[14]

1.2.The first Merck pharmacist in Darmstadt: Jacob Friedrich Merck (1621-1678)

Born on December 18, 1621, Jacob Friedrich Merck was a child of Johann Merck's marriage to Anna Maria Scheffer. It was also intended that he would become a pharmacist, and he also served an apprenticeship at the Ratsapotheke in Schweinfurt, before leaving the city as a journeyman in 1641.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the profession of pharmacist was not yet based on...