Frederick Post left hard times in Germany for the American Dream in Idaho and Washington
In the northeast corner of Evergreen Cemetery in Post Falls, Frederick Post and his wife Margaret lie beside each other under a grey marble monument. The city is named after him. And just a few yards further east, players ride their carts carrying golf clubs to the next hole. Probably not many know that they had just passed by a great Idaho pioneer — whom President Teddy Roosevelt described as “a man who has done things.” Indeed he had.
Frederick August Post was one of the early German immigrants who left a troubled Europe to build a new life in a new land. He brought with him a wife, a dream, an industrious spirit and a noble character. He came and made a difference.
He was born in 1821 into an accomplished family in Herborn, Saxony, today a state in northwest Germany, and received a solid education. His ancestral records go back to 986 A.D. in Schaumburg in Lower Saxony, mentioning Adolph von Post, a member of parliament and a knight whose grandson Henry is the ancestor of all living Posts today, according to “The Post Family” by Marie Caroline de Trobriand Post.
In the centuries that followed, the Post family branched off into Holland and England, and later to America.
Frederick Post — whose father was a cooper — was trained in mining and went to work in a copper mine at age 14. At 20, he joined the military — as was required of all young men at that time — and served “with credit and distinction.” After seven years and rising to the rank of lieutenant, he returned to civilian life and spent the next four years as “overseeing officer” of the German English Mining Company.
In 1848, he married Margaret Hild. That was the same year that a revolution broke out across Europe. The feudal system was collapsing and new nations were being formed. In Germany, the 39 independent states ruled by autocrats that emerged from the former Holy Roman Empire into the German Confederation faced angry mobs demanding economic, social and political change.
Saxony at that time was a constitutional monarchy ruled by King Frederick Augustus II and was in the thick of the revolution. Revolutionaries barricaded the streets of Dresden and even composer Richard Wagner opposed the regime — so much so that he had to flee to Switzerland to avoid arrest. He was in exile for years before the ban was lifted and he was allowed to return.
The mob efforts quickly collapsed however, when the rampaging groups couldn’t present a united front. The aristocrats won. Those troubled times were further exacerbated by a potato blight that pushed many farmers into insolvency. Thousands sold or abandoned their farms, packed their bags and headed for America to begin new lives.
Some had never before left their home districts. According to one historian, most of them came from the lower-middle socio-economic class — “People who had a little, and had an appetite for more.”
It was a tough decision. “The neighbors and friends were on hand to say a last farewell and tears flowed in profusion (since) anyone leaving for America was considered about to pass into eternity,” was how one emigrant described it.
But what a thrilling adventure it must have been. One member of the Schuette who eventually settled in Wisconsin described the awe of first seeing Bremen, their port of departure: “On arrival at this seaport we saw for the first time what we had longed to see, ships of all nations, in all colors, with symbolic figureheads and majestic spars — oh how different from our inland town! What a grand and enchanting picture!”
The German immigrants were quick to make their impact in the new land, introducing kindergartens in schools, Christmas trees, hot dogs and hamburgers. They also brought their culture, work ethic and skills—among them intensive farming, very much needed as America expanded westward.
Frederick and Margaret joined them. In 1850, they left Europe from Antwerp, Belgium on a ship named “Cotton Planter” and arrived in New York on May 20 after about a month at sea. They traveled to Kendall County, Illinois where Frederick spent 20 years farming, built lime kilns, handled a stone quarry and operated a saw mill, a flour mill, and constructed a power plant on the Fox River. The couple also raised a family of six daughters.
In 1871 after the railroad relocated, Post sold his interests in Illinois and headed first to San Francisco and then Portland. There he bought equipment for a lumber mill and grist mill and hauled it to North Idaho.
When he first saw the Upper (or “Little”) Falls of the Spokane River, he immediately realized its potential. He met with Coeur d’Alene tribal Chief Andrew Seltice and negotiated the purchase 298 acres—now the heart of Post Falls.
Post and Seltice met at an historic site called Treaty Rock near the falls, where Post’s name and the date June 1, 1871 are carved into the stone next to Indian pictographs. There is no evidence that an actual treaty or agreement was signed there, but the sale was eventually formalized by a special act of Congress and signed by President Grover Cleveland in 1889. Five years later, Post received official title.
After buying the land, Post started building the area’s first saw mill next to the falls. He also developed a ranch near today’s Rathdrum after buying squatters rights property from a hunter and trapper named Connors. He later deeded the property to his son-in-law Charles West Wood. (Rathdrum’s original name was “Westwood” — named after him.)
About 1875, another opportunity arose:
James A. Glover who ran a small store that doubled for a post office was a man with a mission — to build a city out of the 20 or so families living around the Spokane waterfalls. The area needed a grist mill, but there wasn’t enough local capital or machinery to build it, so he contacted Frederick Post for help.
The carrot that Glover dangled in front of him was 40 acres of free land on the south bank of the Spokane River — today in the heart of downtown Spokane (Monroe to Post streets). In 1876, Post accepted the offer and moved to Spokane and built the mill at the falls, and a home for his family.
The following year, the Nez Perce War broke out and the region was in turmoil. The Spokane Indians had already given up their warrior ways, but other tribes hadn’t. Whites were still uncertain how safe it would be and few came. Jim Glover’s store could barely survive — most of his business coming from trading with the Indians.
In 1879, Post sold the gristmill for $97,300 and the family moved back to Upper Falls — later renamed Post Falls—and expanded his saw mill, harnessing power from the falls. Rafts of logs were pulled down the river by tugboats from Lake Coeur d’Alene or brought overland by rail or horse wagon.
He also built a gristmill and installed the first water system in Post Falls and Rathdrum — the original pipes being made of wood and held together with wire.
In 1881, the Northern Pacific Railroad completed its track through Rathdrum and Post built another saw mill there.
James B. Hawley notes in his “History of Idaho,” that “Mr. Post sold his saw mill to the Spokane & Idaho Lumber Company in 1894, having previously sold his flour mill to Dart Brothers in 1889. The owners of both mills enlarged them and increased their usefulness, thereby extending their trade over a large territory.”
Frederick Post retired from active business in 1898 and lived quietly for the next 10 years. He died on Aug. 7, 1908, while he and Margaret were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. She passed away about 18 months later.
Family member Marion K. Crosby wrote, “How difficult it must have been for our forebears to turn away from their beautiful ancestral town where they had enjoyed the privileges which pertain to an old and established family and come to America…We who are their descendants must remain forever grateful for their foresight and courage.”
Syd Albright is a writer and journalist living in Post Falls. Contact him at silverflix@roadrunner.com. Thanks to Dorothy Dahlgren, Museum of North Idaho, and Cate Symons, Post Falls Library for research assistance.