We set off on the "Concordia" steamship
Peter Heinich Merkens was an important Cologne entrepreneur at the beginning of the 19th century. Contemporaries held him in high regard as a politician and business leader. From 1810 to 1833 and again from 1835 to 1837, he was a member of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce, which he also chaired as president during these periods. He promoted the city's economy in many different ways. Above all, Merkens campaigned for free trade on the Rhine.
The Prussian-Rhenish Steamship Company (PRDG) was founded in Cologne on October 3, 1825 under the management of the merchant. Its statutes were approved by the Prussian Minister of the Interior Friedrich von Schuckmann on June 11, 1826, the official founding date of the company and thus also the founding date of the successor company Köln-Düsseldorfer Deutsche Rheinschiffahrt GmbHKD). At this point, it should be noted once again that the year 1853 occasionally appears as the "birth year" of KD . This date marks the formation of the joint venture Kölnische und Düsseldorfer Gesellschaft für Rhein-Dampfschiffahrt. Previously, these were two separate shipping companies.
Hull made of oak wood
The wooden paddle steamer "Concordia" was the first PRDG steamship to operate a regular service between Cologne and Mainz in 1827. It was built at a shipyard in the Netherlands according to the plans of the German engineer Gerhard Moritz Roentgen. The ship's hull was made of oak and the floor was covered with sheet iron. There was an identical ship, the steamer Friedrich Wilhelm. Both were sold in 1841 for a total of 50,000 thalers.
In the fall of 1825, Chamber of Commerce President Merkens issued an appeal to all Cologne merchants to participate in the founding of the steamship company. His word already carried great weight at this time. In 1818, he had founded the insurance company "Rheinschiffahrts-Assecuranzgesellschaft", the first independent insurance company for the transportation of goods on the Rhine. Agrippina-Versicherung emerged from this in 1845. In 1838/39, he acquired a stake in the Kölnische Feuerversicherungs-Gesellschaft, which was renamed Colonia under his management in 1841. Merkens was a member of the Cologne City Council for many years, and in 1826 he was appointed by the Prussian government to the provincial parliament in Düsseldorf
"Conquering the freedom of the Rhine"
In a letter of thanks to Karl Haus, the then General Director of Colonia Kölnische Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft, written on a typewriter in 1951 and not printed, the role of Peter Heinrich Merkens is described very favorably and the beginnings of steam navigation are also recalled. Merkens saw it as a suitable means of "conquering the freedom of the Rhine, participating in world trade and thus regaining Cologne's importance as a major trading center." Steam tug shipping was not suitable for these noble goals, as it had not developed positively "due to the resistance of the leisurely shippers and lazy boatmen".
Nowadays, Peter Heinrich Merkens would be described as a kind of "self-made man". He was born on December 29, 1777 in Mülheim am Rhein - not yet a district of Cologne at the time. His father was a master baker. After finishing elementary school, Merkens attended Wilhelm Anton Ising's Protestant commercial institute in Mülheim before completing a commercial apprenticeship with Everhard Caspar Schüll, a successful forwarding merchant and spice trader in Cologne, in 1792 at the age of 14. After his apprenticeship, Merkens moved to Johann Jacob Schüll's spice and wine shop.
First a businessman, then a banker
In 1808, he set up his own business and founded a colonial goods and spice shop together with Jacob Seydlitz, a native of Maastricht. After Seydlitz's death in 1810, he continued to run the business together with his widow and expanded it into one of the largest trading houses in Cologne. During the Continental Blockade, he shifted the focus of his trading company to the banking business. The Continental Blockade was an economic blockade imposed by Napoleon on the United Kingdom and its colonies. It lasted from 1806 to 1813. As Cologne had been under French rule since 1794, the companies in Cologne were also affected by the blockade. In the end, Seydlitz & Merkens only operated as a bank. The bank, which was involved in numerous start-ups and conversions of companies in the Rhineland around 1850, was later absorbed into Deutsche Bank.
Flags at half-mast for six weeks
Until his death in January 1854, Peter Heinrich Merkens remained Chairman of the Board of Directors of both Köln-Düsseldorfer and Colonia. After his death, the 22 ships of Köln-Düsseldorfer lowered their flags to half-mast for six weeks. One of the ships was renamed "Merkens" in his honor. This was the "Ariadne". This steamer had already caused a sensation during her first deployment. Because the "Ariadne" was fast. On August 18, 1852, the paddle steamer took two hours and 43 minutes to travel from Cologne to Bonn. For comparison: today, the KD excursion boats reach the federal city of Bonn from Cologne in around three hours. However, the "Ariadne" only had a few passengers on board at the time and did not make any stopovers in Cologne-Porz and Wesseling
The "Ariadne" became the "Merkens"
The good time was the decisive factor in the board of directors of the PreußischRheinische Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft agreeing to buy the steamer. The trip to Bonn was the trial run, so to speak. The smooth-deck ship was used for passengers and goods with two funnels on the Middle Rhine route. Many steamboats built in the 19th century were smooth-deck ships. This type of ship had no superstructures on the main deck, only wheelhouses and covered stairways. The ship was in service until the beginning of 1889. Due to its very high coal consumption, it was taken out of service on July 20, 1889 and decommissioned in Cologne's Rheinauhafen as a reserve ship. Its time was finally up when the two newbuildings "Lohengrin" and "Overstolz" were put into service in 1890. Six years later, the "Merkens" was sold to Holland for scrapping.
"The paddle steamer took two hours and 43 minutes to travel from Cologne to Bonn on August 18, 1852."