My Genealogy Hound

AUGUSTUS WOLLE, deceased, who was foremost in so many of the great enterprises of the Lehigh Valley, was a man of great public spirit, was far-sighted and sagacious in his judgment, and many of his investments exceeded his greatest expectation in their outcome. For generations his ancestors have been conspicuously associated with the history of the Moravian Society at Bethlehem. One of these, Peter Wolle, was born November 6, 1745, in Herrnhut, Saxony, Germany, and was sent as a Moravian missionary to the West Indies. His children ultimately emigrated to the United States, becoming men of prominence. The Rt.-Rev. Peter Wolle, as he was called, was for years Senior Bishop of the society in America. Jacob was for many years Justice of the Peace, Chief Burgess, and a leading member of the Philharmonic Society in Bethlehem; and another son, John Frederick, our subject’s father, for twenty years conducted the business of the society’s store at the corner of Main and Market Streets, this city. He married Sabina, daughter of Judge William Henry, of Nazareth, Pa., and granddaughter of Judge William Henry, of Lancaster, Pa. The latter was a member of the Continental Congress and a personal friend of Robert Fulton, to whom he gave the original idea and sketch of the steamboat, which the latter afterward patented. He was also in the Government employ during the Revolutionary War, furnishing arms to the Colonial army. At his death he was Treasurer of Lancaster County, and the court appointed his wife, a woman of great ability, to fill out his term. Their son William was a pioneer, near Nazareth, in the iron furnace business, his forge and works being located at Jacobsburg.

Augustus Wolle, who was born at Nazareth, September 8, 1821, received a thorough education in the Moravian schools, as did also his two brothers and sister. Sylvester, the eldest, was Treasurer of the Moravian Society of the Northern Diocese. Rev. Francis, the second son, was Principal of the Young Ladies’ Seminary in Bethlehem for seventeen years; and Elizabeth became the wife of Bishop H. A. Shultz in 1835.

Our subject entered the co-operative store superintended by his father, and was a clerk there for ten years. He then purchased the establishment, and remained its sole proprietor until 1853, when he associated with himself Robert P. Krause and James H. Wolle. Subsequently Ambrose J. Erwin was also admitted, and the business was conducted under the name of A. Wolle & Co. until 1863, when the firm name was changed to Wolle, Krause & Erwin, under which title they continued seven years, when the senior partner retired. During the thirty-five years of his active management, the business increased with great rapidity, and its reputation as one of the principal trading-houses of the region was fully sustained. The active brain of Augustus Wolle developed many other enterprises of magnitude, and his ventures were attended with unusual success. As early as 1837 his brother Francis, when clerking for his father, invented a machine for the manufacture of paper bags, on which he received patents in 1852. In order to render this valuable invention profitable, a vast deal of energy and money were required, and the necessary means were furnished by Augustus Wolle. After an outlay of $75,000, much of this being spent in litigating infringements on the patent, the right was disposed of for $200,000. The brothers were the pioneers, and the very first in the world, to manufacture paper bags by machinery. Eighteen years of anxious care, visiting of the Paris Exposition in 1855, and traveling to other European cities for the purpose of introducing the invention, were required to effect the great final results. S. E. Pettee, who made the most important improvement on the machine, contributed equally to its ultimate practical use and satisfactory success.

After disposing of the patent, Augustus Wolle again interested himself in the manufacture of iron, having previously been a stockholder in the Thomas Iron Company of Hokendauqua, when he had conceived certain original ideas upon the subject. These he proceeded, in 1857, to practically carry out, and in 1860, in company with others, he founded an iron company, which was located on the south side of the Lehigh River at Bethlehem. Moreover, he purchased land in what is now known as South Bethlehem, and by his individual efforts succeeded in procuring papital in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Though seemingly great risks were taken in venturing upon the enterprise with comparatively insufficient capital, the Bethlehem Iron Company was established in 1860, and is now one of the most extensive works of the kind in the world. Mr. Wolle was the first President of this great company, and four years later the success of his last enterprise prompted him to other fields, and his attention being drawn to the slate interests of Northampton County, his first move was the organization of the Chapman Slate Company, which also proved a decided financial success. The same year he founded the Pennsylvania Slate Company, for which he pledged his personal responsibility, and this enterprise nearly proved his Waterloo, for the company encountered such severe difficulties and losses that it was obliged to succumb, but, unwilling to acknowledge defeat, Mr. Wolle re-organized the company which finally operated with success. In the building of the railroad from Bethlehem to Wind Gap he was also interested. The old Pennsylvania Slate Company, where now stands Pen Argyl and at present owned by John I. Blair, is now worth millions, and the Bethlehem Iron Company is noted the world over. In real estate he had much invested at times, and was one of the founders of South Bethlehem.

In 1845 Augustus Wolle married C. E. Leinbach, of Salem, N. C., by whom he had ten children. Emily T. became Mrs. William S. Sieger, and died in 1873; Francis L. and Clarence A. reside in Bethlehem; Rev. Edward S. is pastor of the Second Moravian Church in Philadelphia; Alice C. is the wife of Rev. John H. Clewell, Principal of the Female Academy of Salem, N. C.; M. Eugenia is the wife of Rev. F. P. Wild, pastor of a church at Bethabara, Jamaica, West Indies; Edith S., whose home is in New York City, is the wife of E. J. Wessels; Grace has charge of the school of cookery in the Salem Female Academy in North Carolina; a sketch of George H. is on another page of this volume; and Elizabeth L. makes her home in Bethlehem. The mother of these children is still living at the old home, but the husband and father was called from this life August 11, 1878. He was every inch a true and noble man, who numbered many friends.