“Nro. 43. 24. 27. 89. 55.”, that was the lucky numbers in Hochstift Wrzburg on October 24th, 1768. A week later, the “Hochfrstlich-Bambergische weekly question and advertisement news” reported on the 25th drawing of the Hochfrstlichen-Wrzburgischen Lotto. One of the seven main goals went to Marktheidenfeld this Monday. The winner had bought his ticket in “Comptoir Nro. 32 of Mr. Ulsamer zu Markt-Heydenfeld”.
This news leaves a little smile and amazement. In May 1767, the ruler of Wrzburg, Prince-Bishop Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim, launched a lottery. As early as the middle of the 15th century, ecclesiastical institutions in particular were using the game of chance to finance special buildings or social projects with the income from it. In the 18th century, the lottery business was in full bloom in Germany.
Born in 1708, von Seinsheim, a diplomat and clergyman from the vicinity of Regensburg, was elected bishop of the Wrzburg monastery in 1755. Two years later, he also took over the influential rulership in neighboring Bamberg. The “father of the fatherland”, as he was called admiringly, was in chronic financial distress.
Seinsheim introduced compulsory schooling
The Freemason and spirit of the Enlightenment made a contribution to the economic development in his two dominant areas and promoted the Main shipping among other things with the building of the old crane in Wrzburg. Seinsheim reformed the school system and introduced compulsory education. He reduced the number of Catholic holidays and had the fourteen saints basilica completed. In Wrzburg, the prince-bishop’s residence was completed according to his ideas. Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim is ascribed a brilliant court holding, so he founded a respected court opera.
No wonder, then, for his subjects that he turned the control screw with a new system. The introduction of a lottery was another idea to increase the prince-bishop’s income considerably. The winning numbers were apparently determined with a wheel of fortune in the Wrzburg town hall. A new drawing took place every three weeks. In February 1783, the 282nd drawing was counted.
The lottery was widely advertised. For example, at the 13th drawing in February 1768, it was publicly announced that the winnings would have far exceeded the income from the lottery and that this really testified to the high attractiveness and chance of success for the players. Lottery tickets were available from many merchants all over Germany from Augsburg to Nuremberg to Cologne and Hamburg. Among these “comptoirs” there were evidently Jewish traders.
Wine trader Ulsamer was host in the “Golden Barrel”
However, we do not know who was the lucky Marktheidenfeld lottery king in 1768, and we do not know anything about the size of his main hit. There are only interesting things to report about Mr Ulsamer, in whose office the ticket was bought. As an expert in local history, Leonhard Scherg was able to assign the name to the wine merchant Joseph Andreas Ulsamer (1719-1785), who had come to Marktheidenfeld from Freudenberg am Main. He is recorded as “caupo ad signum vasis aurei”, so to speak, as the host of the “Golden Barrel” and as a member of the Marktheidenfeld village court.
One of his six descendants is Johann Paulus Ulsamer, a wine merchant on the market square in the later property of the inn “Zur Post”, today’s Greek restaurant “Thessaloniki”. The former “Schwarzer Adler” inn is also associated with the name Ulsamer. In addition to the Ulsamer wine merchants and innkeepers, there was also a lineage of boatmen before the name disappeared from Marktheidenfeld in the middle of the 19th century.
Franz Ludwig von Erthal from Lohr ended the splendor
The Wrzburg lottery was soon to be a thing of the past, because with Prince-Bishop von Seinheim’s successor, Franz Ludwig von Erthal, a completely different spirit returned. In 1779 the nobleman from Lohr became Prince-Bishop of Bamberg and Wrzburg after his predecessor had died. He ended the pageantry at the Wrzburger Hof, abolished things like hunting fun, court opera or theater without further ado.
The new Catholic ruler saw his predecessor’s lottery as ruinous for his character. In 1785 he decided to stop it when a pamphlet was circulating in Wrzburg. In it “Madame Lotto” was referred to as the citizen’s maitresse. Originally from Genoa, she settled in “Teutschland” in order to cast a spell on everyone, from day laborers to princes. In the following year, Prince-Bishop von Erthal banned participation in all number lotteries in the Wrzburg Monastery.
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