65. Powder

In Texas our branch of the Krieg family knew that Great-grandfather Treuthardt manufactured powder in Switzerland.   His grandchildren (my father's generation) thought it was gunpowder.

Not until 1998, when I met Margaret, who was a Treuthardt, did evidence surface.   Margaret in 1985 had personally visited the powder mill where Friedrich worked.    Margaret shared her pictures with me, that she and her two sisters had taken at the mill.   She recounted their adventure visiting the mill that day.   Here was the wood storage, here was the furnace house, here was where the mixing was done, this was the mortar tester which proved the finished product.     

Here was the gate that warned, "Entrance forbidden."   That's how my searches had gone all these years.   Now I learned that people had recently entered the realm of the unknown Friedrich.  Not only Margaret, but her sisters, and her cousins, and their children, during numerous visits from the Texas Treuthardts to Switzerland's "French" powder mill.  The known facts:  a Swiss black powder manufacturing plant, a mill, at Aubonne, Canton of Vaud.     

Still needed, though, was help to comprehend black powder production of the 19th century.   The Internet was hit-and-miss on a lot of subjects, Swiss black powder being one of them.   For a few years, I found some references, but they were not productive.   I didn't pursue the idea endlessly but meanwhile the Internet developed. 

In April, 2008, searching for "Swiss black powder," I found a website.   It was a thorough description of black powder, done by a man in Switzerland, who was a chemist and made his own black powder.  He shot muskets, was a muzzle loader and had won championships the world over.   He had (and still does) a premier website, in English, which explained "everything" about black powder, its history, its composition, its features.    He invited his readers to ask him questions.  

I wrote him an email and explained I was looking for my great-grandfather Friedrich Treuthardt who had worked at La Poudrérie Fédérale, Aubonne, and that if anybody could help me, it would be the man I was writing.   The next day, by return email, I had a response from him saying modestly, "We should be able to find something."   It was an understatement.