Our Rich History: The first Christmas tree in Cincinnati, thanks to German immigrant, Dr. Rehfuss


By Don Heinrich Tolzmann
Special to NKyTribune

Dr. Ludwig (Louis) Rehfuss (1806-55) has the honor of setting up the first Christmas tree in Cincinnati in the early 19th century. A German immigrant from Baden-Württemberg, Rehfuss was a medical doctor who came to Cincinnati in 1833 and opened a pharmacy. Alvin F. Harlow writes in his book The Serene Cincinnatians: “It was the Germans who introduced the Christmas tree, now so beloved and so indispensable, into America, and Dr. Rehfuss is said to have set up the first one that Cincinnati ever saw.”

According to the Find-A-Grave website, Rehfuss is buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. The site also indicates that he introduced the Christmas tree to Cincinnati. This most likely took place in the 1830s after he established his business in the Queen City.

christmas-tree-old-lithograph

The tree he set up probably looked like the one shown in a book by another German immigrant: The Stranger’s Gift, by Hermann Bokum (1836). This was the first illustration of a Christmas tree published in America. Bokum described German Christmas customs and traditions as “gifts” given to America by recently arrived strangers to the land, that is, by immigrants.

The 1830s were times that saw German immigrants introduce the Christmas tree elsewhere as well. In 1832, Charles Follen, professor of German at Harvard, introduced the first such tree in New England, for example.

Rehfuss was a founding member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft (German society) in Cincinnati in 1834, and also helped found a German newspaper, the Cincinnati Volksblatt, in 1836.

Rehfuss “contributed very much to the elevation and liveliness of social life in Cincinnati by means of his social talents as well as by means of his good fortune, which made his home a real social center,” according to Gustav Koerner, author of a German-American history published in Cincinnati in 1880.

With the rising tide of German immigration to the area, German-style Christmas trees no doubt soon adorned the area on both sides of the Ohio River when the Advent season arrived. And, now it simply is taken for granted as the way we celebrate Christmas.

Don Heinrich Tolzmann is a nationally and regionally noted historian of German Americana. He has written and edited dozens of books, and contributed to many others, including The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky.


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