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Husum

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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a town in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, in a fertile district 22 m. inland from the North Sea, on the canalized Husumer Au, which forms its harbour and roadstead, 99 m. N.W. from Hamburg on a branch line from Tdnning. Pop. (1900) 8268. It has steam communication with the North Frisian Islands (Nordstrand, Fdhr and Sylt), and is a port for the cattle trade with England. Besides a ducal palace and park, it possesses an Evangelical church and a gymnasium. Cattle markets are held weekly, and in them, as also in cereals, a lively export trade is done. There are also extensive oyster fisheries, the property of the state, the yield during the season being very considerable. Husum is the birthplace of Johann Georg Forchhammer (1794-1865), the mineralogist, Peter Wilhelm Forchhammer (1801-1894), the archaeologist, and Theodore Storm (1817-1888), the poet, to the last of whom a monument has been erected here.

Husum is first mentioned in 1252, and its first church was built in 1431. Wisby rights were granted it in 1582, and in 1603 it received municipal privileges from the duke of Holstein. It suffered greatly from inundations in 1634 and 1717.

See Christiansen, Die Geschichte Husums (Husum, 1903); and Henningsen, Das Stiftungsbuch der Stadt Husum (Husum, 1904).