Heinrich Schliemann - Career and Family

Career and Family

On March 1, 1844, 22-year old Schliemann took a position with B. H. Schröder & Co., an import/export firm. In 1846 the firm sent him as a General Agent to St. Petersburg. In time, Schliemann represented a number of companies. He learned Russian and Greek, employing a system that he used his entire life to learn languages—Schliemann claimed that it took him six weeks to learn a language and wrote his diary in the language of whatever country he happened to be in.

By the end of his life, he could converse in English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Polish, Italian, Greek, Latin, Russian, Arabic, and Turkish as well as German. Schliemann's ability with languages was an important part of his career as a businessman in the importing trade. In 1850, Heinrich learned of the death of his brother, Ludwig, who had become wealthy as a speculator in the California gold fields. Schliemann went to California in early 1851 and started a bank in Sacramento buying and reselling over a million dollars of gold dust in just six months. When the local Rothschild agent complained about short-weight consignments he left California, pretending it was because of illness. While he was there, California became the 31st state in September 1850 and Schliemann acquired United States citizenship.

According to his memoirs, before arriving in California he dined in Washington with President Millard Fillmore and his family, but Eric Cline says that he didn't attend but simply read about it in the papers. He also published what he said was an eyewitness account of the San Francisco fire of 1851 which he said was in June although it took place in May. At the time he was actually in Sacramento and used the report of the fire in the Sacramento Daily Journal to write his report.

On April 7, 1852, he sold his business and returned to Russia. There he attempted to live the life of a gentleman, which brought him into contact with Ekaterina Lyschin, the niece of one of his wealthy friends. Schliemann had previously learned his childhood sweetheart, Minna, had married.

Heinrich and Ekaterina married on October 12, 1852. The marriage was troubled from the start. Schliemann next cornered the market in indigo (an important dye) and then went into the indigo business itself, turning a good profit. Ekaterina and Heinrich had a son, Sergey, and two daughters born in 1855, 1858 and 1861 respectively. Schliemann made yet another quick fortune as a military contractor in the Crimean War, 1854-1856. He cornered the market in saltpeter, sulfur, and lead, constituents of ammunition, which he resold to the Russian government.

By 1858, Schliemann was wealthy enough to retire. In his memoirs, he claimed that he wished to dedicate himself to the pursuit of Troy.

As a consequence of his many travels, Schliemann was often separated from his wife and small children. He spent a month studying at the Sorbonne in 1866, while moving his assets from St. Petersburg to Paris to invest in real estate. He asked his wife to join him, but she refused. Schliemann threatened to divorce Ekaterina twice before actually doing so. He claimed to have utilised the divorce laws of Indiana in 1869 although he obtained the divorce by lying about his residency.