Carl August Eckart’s Wills

The will drawn up by Carl August, the "Napoleon of Emskirchen", in 1854.

The Eckart Family Archive contains two wills by Carl August Eckart, dating from the years 1842 and 1854. Both documents consist of several pages and were sealed with waxen seals and the Eckart family’s coat of arms. They are thus among the earliest documents to have been passed down to us on which the coat of arms is used. The will starts with the words:

"Dear children. The very disturbing time leads me, as one can be called to one’s maker unexpectedly, to remind you to love and respect one another and to honor your dear mother. The Lord has blessed me and amply rewarded my diligence and effort, so that I am able to provide for you, dear children, if you use it to good effect. My sincerest thanks to God the Almighty for this. Always follow your grandfather’s motto ›With God! My happiness! ‹ and start any work and any undertaking with God’s help, and his blessing will never be long in coming."

What Carl August considered "very disturbing" and "unexpected" were probably the sudden deaths of his two brothers David Eckart in March 1853 and Georg Eckart in January 1854. Carl August died three years later, shortly before his 70^th birthday, on November 16, 1857. His grave can still be visited today in the Emskirchen graveyard.

The will with the seal and the scarcely recognizable family coat of arms is one of the oldest existing documents on which the coat of arms was officially used.