To George Washington from Johann Paul Golling, 4 February 1794
From Johann Paul Golling
Translation.
Sir.Nueremberg [Germany] Febr. 4. 1794
At the pressing Instance of my Son-in-Law John Benjamin Erhard, Doctor of Physic I take the Liberty to forward to Your Excy’s Address his Letter relating the melancholy Circumstances of a late unfortunate Event concerning him, that involved me in the deepest sorrow as also my Daughter his wife and his own father.1 We are all honest people and every Thing, what he in his letter advances is pure Truth. I adjoin here the names of a number of gentlemen of Respectability who might give Information of his Character, in case Your Excellency do his petition think worth any Notice. I remain most respectfully Your Excellency’s most humble & devotd Servant
John Paul Golling
Count Schimmelmann at Copenhagen.
Professor Baggerson
at the same place.
Prof. Kant at Koenigsberg. Prof.
Reinhold at Kiel.
Counsellor Wieland
at Weimar. Cr Siebold at Würzburg.2
L (translation), DNA: RG 59, Miscellaneous Letters.
1. See Johann Benjamin Erhard to GW, 27 Jan. 1794. Dorothea Regina Golling (b. 1770) married Erhard in 1792.
2. Count Ernst Heinrich Schimmelmann and Karl Kaspar von Siebold are mentioned also in Erhard’s letter. Jens Immanuel Baggesen (1764–1826) was a Danish poet. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), an eminent German philosopher, lectured at the University of Königsberg in East Prussia (present-day Kaliningrad, Russia), 1770–97. Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757–1823) was a native of Vienna, Austria. A philosopher and follower of Kant, he lectured at the University of Jena, 1787–94, and then at the University of Kiel, 1794– 1823. Christoph Martin Wieland (1733–1813) was a German poet, novelist, and translator who lived in the German city of Weimar, Thuringia, from 1772 until his death.