Friedrich Wilhelm von Gerlach

1711 – 1780

Privy Councillor of Finance · father of both main branches

Estate: Schwemmin, Parsow and further Pomeranian estates

Friedrich Wilhelm von Gerlach, son of Lebrecht, served as Privy Councillor of Finance in the General Directory in Berlin, in the administration of Frederick the Great. He married twice, first Christiane Sophie Coeper (1719–1759), then her sister Antoinette Wilhelmine Coeper. In 1765 he acquired the Schwemmin estate, and between 1772 and 1779 – sources differ – the neighbouring Parsow, along with further Pomeranian estates (Ganzkow, Mechenthin, a share in Rützow). As a finance councillor he took part in Frederick the Great's colonisation of the Warthebruch: the colony of Gerlachsthal (today Gostkowice), founded in 1773, bears his name. After his death in 1780 his sons Ludwig Wilhelm August and Carl Friedrich Leopold divided the inheritance – the origin of the Parsow and Rohrbeck lines of the family.

Chronicle

1711
Born, son of Lebrecht Gerlach.
1742–1802
How the Pomeranian estates came into the family is recorded in the archive by a file of its own: "II Familien Nachrichten. Die Pommerschen Güter" gathers some seventy documents and copies from these sixty years. The opposing parties are the von Podewils and a von Walter; beside him appear his brothers Martin (1716–1760) and Otto Lebrecht, with Sophia Hedewig, and later his son Carl Friedrich Leopold.
vor 1759
Marriage to Christiane Sophie Coeper (1719–1759), daughter of a wealthy burgher family; after her death he marries her sister Antoinette Wilhelmine. The fortune she brought greatly increased the family holdings – at his death in 1780 he left five estates (Kraus 1994).
1745–1765
The Berlin address calendars list him from 1745 as War and Domains Councillor of the Kurmark chamber: until 1749 he lives "in Castellan Liebenwald's house in the Markgrafenstraße", from 1750 to 1764 "in the Charlottenstraße in the house of Frau Hofräthin Cöper" – his mother-in-law's house in the Friedrichstadt, where the sons therefore grew up; in 1755–1759 there is also a "Gerlach house" in Neu-Cölln. Only the calendar for 1765 names him Privy Councillor of Finance, War and Domains in the General Directory (Berlin State Library, address calendars 1745–1765).
1754
According to Wutstrack's description of Pomerania (supplement, 1795) Privy Councillor of Finance at the General Directory in Berlin from 1754; Wutstrack gives 15 December as his birthday and 19 December 1780 as the day of his death – supporting the death notice of the Hamburgische neue Zeitung ("in the night of the 18th") against the older date of 22 December.
1759
His first wife Christiane Sophie Coeper dies; the family history calls her "of an old and respected family in Bremen". Of five children only two sons survive: Ludwig Wilhelm August – nineteenth-century sources give the names in the order Ludwig August Wilhelm – born 17 August 1751, and Carl Friedrich Leopold, born 25 August 1757. Her sister, whom he then marries, also dies before him at the age of thirty-one.
1765
Acquires the Schwemmin estate – the first Pomeranian property of this line.
1772/1779
Acquisition of Parsow (sources give differing years).
1773
The Warthebruch colony of Gerlachsthal is named after him.
1780
Death; the division of the inheritance among his sons founds the Parsow and Rohrbeck branches. The Hamburgische neue Zeitung reports from Berlin: "In the night of the 18th of this month Herr Friedrich Wilhelm von Gerlach, Royal Privy Councillor of Finance, War and Domains, died here in the 70th year of his age" (26 December 1780) – family tradition gives 22 December.
1780
Death on 29 December. His younger son is already a councillor at that point but still a minor (family history, 1903).
1885
One number of the monthly "Haus Gerlach" opens with an article about him. Beside it stand an obituary of the Pillau clockmaker Benjamin Gerlach, a survey of "von Gerlach in the lexicons of nobility" and a pedigree of the Gerlach of Rauschnick. The text itself has not yet been seen; the volume is held at Berlin, Leipzig, Stuttgart and Bamberg.

Sources and literature