Charles van Ravenswaay in his epic The Arts and Architecture of German Settlements in Missouri: A Survey of a Vanishing Culture: “This timely work… greatly stimulated immigration to the United States and caused thousands to make Missouri their destination… For more than a generation Duden’s writings formed the leitmotif of German settlement in Missouri, with the interpretation of his comments provoking endless discussion among those who came here. Many immigrants continued to revere his memory as the father of the German migration, and even those who blamed him for their misfortunes seem to have had a grudging respect for that kindly, guileless man.”
Duden was born in Remscheid, Duchy of Berg, Germany on May 18, 1789, to Leonhard and Maria Katherina (nee Hartcop) Duden. His family, owned a pharmaceutical business and were members of the wealthy and upper class. A middle child, he lost his father when barely six years old. His early education was at the gymnasium in Dortmund. He chose the field of law, with his older brother Leonhard handling the family business in Remscheid. Duden attended the Universities of Duesseldorf, Heidelberg, and Goettingen from 1806 through 1810. He received his first appointment as a Justice in 1811, at Mulheim with a special dispensation, as he was only twenty-two years old.
From 1813 until 1817, Duden was caught up in the larger historic events of his homeland, serving in the First Battalion of the Second Bergian Infantry Regiment as a Lieutenant and adjutant in the War against Napoleon. He served without pay, and heroically was credited with saving the lives of others in his regiment. The years following the war, the country was in turmoil, with crop failures came famine, due to a great increase in population as well. Duden described Germany as a “country where hunger, avarice and vanity have put so many wheels in motion!” Subterfuge, spying and political maneuvering were the rule rather than a rarity.
Emigration propaganda increased greatly. Hundreds of publications began to surface, urging migration to England, Russia and Brazil. Some were written about the young United States, but none had actually explored the possibilities. The country itself was experiencing a great western migration, with pioneers and trailblazers like Daniel Boone leading families into the newly purchased Louisiana Territory less than twenty years before. The biography of Boone, had already surfaced in German, in the late 1700s before he moved to Missouri in September of 1799.
Duden was greatly influenced by the turmoil he saw in those years, and what he would hear from his fellow countrymen when he returned to the courtrooms at Mulheim.He knew the interactions between the German government and the people better than most did at that time, because he was sitting on the front line. He resolved he would be part of the solution rather than the problem. He refused the position of Senior Judge at Mulheim in 1817.
