Dr. M. F. Bonzano,  St. Bernard Parish
Submitted by Mike Miller




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Dr. M. F. Bonzano,  St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana
     Dr. M. F. Bonzano.  A scholarly hermit, a peaceful philosopher,
living an existence approaching, in its unique features, that pictured
in the verses of the pastoral poets, is Dr. Maximilian Ferdinand
Bonzano, who, after years of the most active public life, is now
residing quietly at his "Hermitage" plantation in St. Bernard parish.
Dr. Bonzano was born on the 22d of March, 1821, in the city of Ehingen,
on the Danube, in the kingdom of Wurtemberg, Germany.  After attending
the schools and colleges of his native city, he came to America with his
father and brother in 1835.  While the father, Nicholas Antonio Bonzano,
whose wife with four younger sons and two daughters remained in Germany,
had no intention of settling permanently in this country, visited the
Red River country and eastern parts of the rising young republic of
Texas, where he purchased some lands on the Angolina river, the subject
of this sketch found his first occupation as a roller boy in the
printing office of William McKean & Co., corner of Camp and Common
streets; now the site of Llyon's drug building.  While so engaged the
two printers, George W. Kendall and F. A. Lumsden, started a newspaper,
which they decided to call the "Picayune."  They had a small office on
Gravier street, which was fitted in a most primitive style.  Its
condition was well displayed in the semi-centennial edition of the
"Picayune," published in 1887, in which the first paper was reproduced.
The compositor's cases were, in this birthplace of the paper, on old
dry-goods boxes, but Messrs. Lumsden and Kendall had no press.  Their
forms were set up and locked before arrangements were made for a press.
Finally negotiations wore completed whereby George L. Shortt,
generously, as manager and partner of the printing office, offered the
loan and use of a press.  Then the forms were brought to the office
where young Bonzano was employed, and Mr. Kendall worked off the first
and several subsequent editions in person.  As roller boy, Max Bonzano
volunteered to roll for the man who became famous as one of the most
progressive journalists of the time.  The severe yellow-fever epidemic
of the year 1837 determined the father and his two sons to seek immunity
by a visit to the city of Houston, of which plans and glowing
descriptions had been published in German pamphlets.  Investing the
greater part of his available means in general merchandise, he, with his
two sons, took passage on the schooner "Helen," Captain Delarue, and
after burying several passengers on the river banks before reaching the
gulf, arrived in Galveston, which consisted of half a dozen adobe
houses, a couple of newly built houses, warehouses of McKinney &
Williams and a new wharf.  A part of the goods were shipped on a
lighter, the greater part remained in Galveston.  All were on board the
lighter, with several other passengers, when the fearful September
hurricane burst forth, driving the lighter, fortunately, into Buffalo
bayou, whence the schooner was cordelled up that crooked bayou, to the
great delight of the boys, to a place where the bifurcation of the bayou
stopped further progress.  It was the city of Houston.  Scrambling up a
high bluff, through dense undergrowth, and lofty forest trees, they
encountered a man in a sugar hogsbead, who, to the delight of old
Bonzano, who did not speak English, proved to be a German, long after
known by the name of Diogenes, from whom he received the startling
information, that there was no other city than the few tents scattered
about and he showed the several trees, blazed to mark the direction of
the proposed streets.  Soon after came the news of the total destruction
of Galveston and the loss of all the goods stored there.  This
misfortune prevented the intended return to New Orleans.   After
purchasing a tent for $100 and renting the piece of ground on which it
stood for $25 a month, from an enterprising gentleman, the goods from
the lighter were landed and parbuckled up the steep bluff bank.  The
site of the tent afterward proved to be the foot of Main street,
Houston.  A lot of ground, facing the present Market Square was
purchased of the late Dr. Ashbel Smith (late president of the Texas
university) and the services of two carpenters, who were passengers on
the lighter, were engaged to build the first frame house in the city of
Houston.  It was at this time that the first steamboat ascended Buffalo
bayou, and running on a snag, was sunk, but soon after raised.  This
steamboat, originally the "Leonidas," a Mississippi River towboat, that
ran away from the sheriff, was changed into the "Sam Houston" and
continued in the trade for several years.  The father, with the remnant
of the goods saved, opened a store and was very successful.  Despairing
of his efforts to persuade his young sons, who greatly appreciated
American liberty, to return to Germany to complete their education, he
determined to return alone to his wife and other children.  While nearly
on the point of starting, and receiving the farewell visit of his elder
son Max, who had come over from New Orleans, he succumed to a malignant
fever, on May 11, 1839.  The mother died in Germany,. January 8, 1844.
Of the sons, only four became permanent residents; the Doctor; Edward
J., who died in Texas, October 7, 1857; the late Hubert B., well known
as a custom house broker of New Orleans, who died January 31,1891, and
Adolphus B., the present well known Chief Engineer of the Phoenixville
Bridge Company, of Pennsylvania.<p>
Working several years in a printing office gave young Bonzano excellent
opportunities for mastering the English language.  He left it therefore
and entered a drug store as an apprentice anddevoted himself to the
study of chemistry and pharmacy.  He was later established as an
apothecary and at the same time studied medicine.  In 1843 he entered
the Charity hospital as resident student.  After graduating he was
elected a visiting physician, the duties of which he performed until
1848, when he .was appointed by President James K. Polk melter and
refiner of the mint, vice Prof. J. L. Riddell.  In this place he
continued up to the war.  Up to that event he had never given thought to
politics, being absorbed in his occupations.  The secession and the war
were a surprise to him, they having always appeared as an impossibility,
notwithstanding the preliminary warning clouds which portended such a
calamity.  Feeling that his allegiance and duty bound him to the United
States, Dr. Bonzano soon after the breaking out of the war, left for the
North, where he remained until the capture of New Orleans, when he
returned to the city, arriving on June 7, 1862.  By order of Secretary
of the Treasury Chase he took charge of the mint and recovered and
restored the machinery and implements, which had been more or less
scattered by loans made to various gun factories, and by the occupation
of the building by the Twelfth Maine regiment of volunteers.  Having
accomplished the greater part of this work and desirous of being active
and lending a helping hand to the restoration of the Union, he accepted
the post of acting lighthouse engineer and inspector, in which service
he remained until 1872, retaining charge of the mint also.  In the early
days of June, 1862, the first Union meeting in the South was held at
Lyceum hall now City hall.  Dr. Bonzano was elected by acclamation as
its president, and was by this made chairman of the first mass meeting
of Union sympathizers in any southern state.  When, as
commander-in-chief of the army of the United States, President Abraham
Lincoln issued the proclamation of emancipation, an almost inextricable
confusion was brought about in Louisiana.  The freeing of the negroes
could apply only to the portion of the country held by the enemy, while
in those sections conquered by the federals they remained slaves.  To
solve this gordian knot an election of delegates to a convention of the
people was ordered by Gen. N. P. Banks, commander of the department.
Dr. Bonzano was elected a member of that convention.  E. H. Durell was
elected its president and was escorted to the chair by Judge Rufus K.
Howell, Christian Roselius and Dr. M. F. Bonzano, they having been his
competitors for the chair, who had received the highest number of votes.
On the organization of the convention Dr. Bonzano was appointed chairman
of the committee on emancipation, and as such, wrote the ordinance of
emancipation for Louisiana, which was carried by an overwhelming
majority, only five votes against it being cast.  The measure was
promulgated on May 11,1864, amid the roar of 100 guns on Lafayette
square.  While the convention was yet in session, he was elected a
member of the Baltimore nominating convention with Cuthbert Bullitt,
Judge Atocha and others, who voted for Lincoln and Johnson as the
candidates of the republican party.<p>
In the fall of that year a general election was ordered by the
convention and Dr. Bonzano was chosen member of congress from the First
district.  The committee on elections of the house of representatives,
whose chairman then was the well-known senator, H. L. Dawes of
Massachusetts, reported in his favor, but he was not permitted to take
his seat by reason of an assault with a penknife, committed by the late
A. P. Field (afterward the attorney-general of Louisiana) on the Hon. W.
D. Kelley of Pennsylvania, which caused great excitement not only in
Washington, but all over the country, and the result of which was to
exclude from congress the southern members.  Notwithstanding the failure
of the house of representatives to adopt the report of their committee,
Dr. Bonzano as recognized as the representative of not alone his
district but of the entire state.  He used his influence to soften the
unfriendly sentiment against the state and to alleviate, as far as
possible, the sufferings of the imprisoned southerners, all of whom he
still considered as friends, and many were released from the military
prisons through his efforts as will be remembered by the participants.
About this time he was appointed by President Lincoln, commissioner of
the direct tax of Louisiana, which he resigned upon the organization of
the commission.  In 1868 he was nominated by President Grant, as
supervisor of internal revenue in place of Mr. Creecy, an appointment
against which he protested as being entirely unfitted for it, whereupon
his name was withdrawn.  In 1872 he was chairman of the republican
electoral college of Louisiana.  Th 1873 he was appointed by J. J. Knox,
controller of the currency, as receiver of the First National bank, but
declined to accept the trust.  By the special request of President
Grant, he accepted the position of surveyor-general in place of E. W.
Foster, which he retained until 1874, when he was appointed
superintendent of the mint.  Congress made such scanty appropriations
that little more could be done than to make the most urgent repairs to
the machinery.  The memorable September 14, 1874, interfered for a short
time with his progress in getting the mint in order.  Kellogg, the then
governor, had taken refuge from "the wrath to come," in the United
States custom house.  He was rescued from his perilous position by the
arrival of the United States troops under General Brooke.  Parleys and
negotiations ensued and Kellogg consented to be guided in his future
official acts by an "advisory board," consisting of two representatives
from each party and an umpire to be selected by each central state
committee.  The democrats promptly elected E. A. Burke and Ex-Gov. A.
Voorhies; the republicans elected S. B. Packhard and B. F. Joubert.
Both parties nominated a great number of persons for the position of
umpire, and it looked at one time as if an agreement of the parties was
impossible.  Finally the name of M. F. Bonzano was proposed and both
parties elected him umpire by acclamation.  The advisory board at once
commenced its sessions, sending daily its conclusions and
recommendations to the governor who sanctioned them without exception.
E. A. Burke soon resigned as a member of the board and was succeeded by
E. Howard McCaleb, who served until its dissolution.  Under this
compromise peace was restored; the officers for the ensuing election
appointed with due regard to the interests of both parties and
universally acknowledged impartiality.  The result of the election
ushered in a new era in the history of Louisiana.  A congressional
committee, of whom Hon. R. L. Gibson, now senator, was chairman, in
1875, as an economical measure recommended the conversion of the mint
into an assay office and this being done, Superintendent Bonzano was
appointed assayer in charge.  In 1878 ample appropriations were made for
the then proposed extension of silver coinage.  Under this impetus the
mint was restored.  Dr. Bonzano was strongly supported fcr his former
office at the head of it, by the director of the mint, Mr. Linderman,
but Secretary of the Treasury Sherman, preferred to appoint the late
Hon. Michael Hahn, reserving to Dr. Bonzano the privilege of selecting
any office for himself and of naming all the other officers of the mint.
Hahn being an intimate friend, Dr. Bonzano took the position of coiner
and named Joseph Albrecht as assayer and the late Samuel L. Weeks as
melter and refiner.  During the epidemic of 1878, Weeks died of yellow
fever and the Doctor was requested by the director of the mint to name a
suitable person for the position of melter and refiner.  Unable to
comply with the request, he advised the selection of an experienced man
from some other mint.  The director was not successful in his search for
a qualified man, so Dr. Bonzano offered to exchange the office of coiner
for that of melter and refiner, leaving the coinage department in
complete and effective condition for the coinage of $10,000,000 a year.
Mr. M. V. Davis was appointed coiner and assumed his duties.  In that
year Superintendent Hahn was removed and Ex-Gov. H. S. Foote, of
Mississippi, was appointed as his successor.  Foote died in 1880 and Dr.
Bonzano was again offered the superintendency, but declined it,
preferring a working department as more congenial to his tastes, but
recommended tbe selection of Coiner Davis for the office.  Davis was
appointed and performed his duties until 1882, when Dr. A. W. Smythe was
appointed.  Dr. Bonzano continued his services under the government
until 1883, when he was retired.  In that year he accepted the
nomination by the republican party, as state treasurer, against E. A.
Burke, but Burke got the office.  On the declaration of the result of
the election he retired to his present abode, where he says he hopes to
live the terminating years of his career, enjoying his otium cum
digniate.<p>
Dr. Bonzano never married, and he lives a bachelor.  His home was
purchased in 1878 from the estate of Mrs. Lombard, and to it he gave the
name of "Hermitage."  It fronts on the river, half a mile from the
national cemetery, and about a mile from the limits of Orleans parish.
The ground upon which the Jackson monument rests is rented by him.  The
mansion on his own place is historically remarkable for having been the
headquarters of Gen. Jackson during the battle of New Orleans, and also
for having been the temporary stopping place of the Marquis de Lafayette
when he visited this city, in April, 1825.  The Doctor has restored the
mansion and surroundings to their former condition, and has kept pace
with all the agricultural improvements for making a country home
attractive and comfortable.  But besides these he has erected a brick
building which is his office, his laboratory and scientific workhouse.
Here are the latest inventions of the day, the phonograph, the
type-writer, the self registering thermometer, telegraphic connections
with the city and other marvels of comfort and ingenuity.  On the
shelves of one room is a complete chemical outfit, on those of another
is a splendid collection of classical and scientific writers.  Scattered
about are objects of absorbing interest.  Here is a cannon ball from the
Chalmette battlefield.  Here is a ball from a gun aboard the ships which
fired on the barracks above during the last war.  In one corner is a
collection of blades, among which is a dress sword of the kind worn by a
confederate surgeon in the war, and a cutlass taken from the steamer
Webb after she bad been fired and deserted.  In the Doctor's desks are
papers which had a most important bearing upon the history of the time,
and documents in the handwriting of such men as Farragut, Lincoln,
Johnson and Grant, showing the confidence of such men in him.  He has
not ceased to take an interest in the progress of science, and now
devotes his whole time to his wonted studies in the laboratory, enabling
him to pass his remaining years in tranquil enjoyment and at peace with
all the world.

From Biographical and Historical Memoires of Louisiana, volume 2, pp.
303-306.
Submitted by Mike Miller