The reign of Maria Theresa

During the reign of Maria Theresa, the leather industry of Sankt Vith also commenced. Hubert Buschmann started in March 1752 the tannery tradition of Sankt Vith, that during its economic boom contained more than 600 pits where almost 10.000 hides were processed.

The leather of Sankt Vith had a very good reputation and was brought to the fairs of Leipzig and Frankfurt using horse and carriage.

In the period of Maria Theresa, we can also find the order of the ‘Theresian Registry’, a list of inhabitants and buildings according to residence and judicial areas that was made for tax purposes. In the registry of Sankt Vith you can read that ‘the city is not completely rebuild and partly in very bad condition’. A tax in the current meaning of the word did not yet exist because the tax of the citizens of the city was then half of the tax of the foreigners who did not possess civil rights.

Equal right for all inhabitants and definite abolishment of servitude, forced labour and feudalism (Ancien Régime) only took place with the French Revolution. During the course of the Austrian-French war, after the battle of Fleurus (June 1794), French troops occupied what is currently Belgium and also the area around Sankt Vith. This meant the end of the rule of Sankt Vith as well as the Duchy of Luxembourg. The last feudal lord, Wilhelm of Nassau, fled to England with his family in 1795. Immediately Sankt Vith became the seat of a ‘Mairie’ (mayor) and built with the surrounding mayors the canton of Sankt Vith which was then part of the jurisdiction Malmedy in the Department of the Ourthe.

After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, our territory was added to the Prussian Rhein Province (governance Aachen) at the Viennese congress (1815). Sankt Vith, a craft city until 1820, belonged then to the territory of Malmedy until 1920.

In this period the city saw some improvements of the quality of life (agriculture and forestry, water supply, schools, hospital, postal services, railway services). The connection with the railway (from 1887) meant an important development for the city. In its most thriving period, 30 passenger- and 80 freight trains were received on a daily basis. Around 1200 people were employed here; the importance as an industrial city grew.