Ludwig Niederstetter

Ludwig Niederstetter negotiated commercial questions for Prussia in Washington. In May 1828, after the conclusion of a new commerce and navigation treaty, he pressed Secretary of State Henry Clay to reimburse discriminatory shipping duties collected from Prussian vessels. Prussia had already extended equal treatment to American ships, and Niederstetter argued that reciprocity should cover the earlier payments as well. ¹

His correspondence also connected American and European scholarly circles. Writing from Philadelphia in June 1828, he sent Wilhelm von Humboldt a publication by the traveler Carlo Vidua. Niederstetter recalled meeting Vidua during a joint journey through the northern United States in 1825 and offered Humboldt material gathered during Vidua’s travels. ²