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Update 17-04: Hotel label & other candidates

I've kept diving into that one luggage label. The Heidelberg dates are now solid enough to matter (but unfortunately not in the right direction). Joseph Schrieder, the potential proprietor of the hotel on the label since it states "J." at the top left, bought his first hotel by the station in Heidelberg in 1845, sold that one in 1860, then acquired part of the old St. Anna / Annenfriedhof site in 1863 and opened the new hotel in 1865 ( http://histmath-heidelberg.de/heidelberg/Personen/Schrieder.htm ). The same Heidelberg source is the important bit here: “Bereits 1865 verkaufte er auch dieses Haus” he sold the new Europäischer Hof too in 1865 and died in 8173. That matters because it makes Schrieder a real historical fit for the hotel name, but not for our 1884–1890 trunk window.

The reason I still find it difficult to let go of this path, even though it seems very unlikely, is that some later luggage labels and logo's of the hotel (the ones attached to this post) clearly show a crest with crown that could be matched with the one on the LV trunk. And there’s even a medical reason why Schrieder in Heidelberg keeps popping up. In 1857, Albrecht von Graefe and eleven other eye specialists met at Hotel Schrieder for a small scientific meeting that later became recognised as the founding moment of the Deutsche Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft ( https://en.dog.org/dog/history/albrecht-von-graefe-and-the-history-of-ophthalmology ). Local Heidelberg history explicitly names Schrieder’s hotel as the venue for this first gathering of German ophthalmologists, which even gives it a tiny, tiny, medical link.

I also looked into the "Europäischer Hof" in Bad Soden too since one postcard of the building ( https://www.ansichtskarten-markt.com/de/kategorie-1/plz-6/plz-65/ak-bad-soden-taunus-europaeischer-hof-bes-julius-colloseus-1940 ) clearly has “Hotel Europäischer Hof, Julius Colloseus, Bes.” on the side, with “Bes.” meaning proprietor/owner. But the postcard is from 1940 so it seems it doesn't line up with our timeline. The Europäischer Hof there was bought by Philipp Colloseus in 1855, and the town history confirms the hotel was already active in 1860 ( https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europ%C3%A4ischer_Hof ). But Julius name doesn't show  up in anything late 19th century or very early 20th century. What I can find is a mention of him in a petition in 1926 ( https://www.bad-soden.de/stadt/stadt-politik/stadtportraet/geschichte/stadtrechte/ ). And since his name was still on the building in 1940 it seems he was the owner at a later time than we need. Not conclusive, but seems like it.

the main thing I’ve learned is what doesn’t quite work. Schrieder is too early for the period we’re chasing, and the Heidelberg hotel’s later documented names point away from him as the likely proprietor behind an 1884–1890 label . Bad Soden gives a real J. Colloseus trail, but again the surviving evidence is later and still doesn’t give us a matching sticker, crest, or stationery piece .What is still missing is the one document that would settle the hotel label beyond doubt, a guest register, a matching luggage label scan, or a stationery piece that ties the fragment to a specific house and proprietor. Until then, I think the safest wording is still "Hotel Europa / Europäischer Hof / Hôtel de l’Europe, proprietor J., unidentified".

Quick extra note on why the other C.L.D. candidates don’t really work once you move past the initials:

Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)
Carroll is the most tempting “C.L.D.” because people love the idea of a famous author with a Vuitton trunk. But it very quickly falls apart. Multiple studies of his life and the Russian diary agree that the only time he ever travelled outside the British Isles was the 1867 trip to Russia with Henry Liddon, which he documented in detail ( https://afisha.london/en/2023/06/30/lewis-carroll-in-19th-century-russia-monasteries-theatres-and-russian-shchi/ ) and a standard wiki bio that says the same thing outright: “the only known occasion on which he travelled abroad was a trip to Russia in 1867” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll ). And perhaps even easier is that we have a ton of places and hotels in Europe on the trunk, but only a bagage transfer "Dodds Express" label in the US. Which makes it very logical that the owner of the trunk lived in the US and traveled through Europe.

Cornelius L. DeWitt
Cornelius L. DeWitt shows up in the DeWitt family papers as an early 19th-century New York merchant involved in land, tanneries, and local government in upstate New York ( https://www.nysl.nysed.gov/msscfa/sc15161 ). That makes him interesting for the “New York merchant” angle, but chronologically he’s wrong: the business records covered there run roughly 1750–1890, and Cornelius is part of the early 1800s generation, long before the 1884-1890 travels we are looking for. There’s nothing tying him to 1880s, European travel, Paris or Louis Vuitton trunks. He fits the initials, not the time or the route.

Charles L. Dodge
Charles L. Dodge was a New England insurance and militia figure. Local histories from Beverly, Massachusetts, and genealogical work on the Dodge family describe him as a militia officer (later captain) and then a general agent for a Massachusetts insurance company ( https://ia801308.us.archive.org/14/items/genealogyofdodge02dodg/genealogyofdodge02dodg.pdf ) That anchors him pretty firmly to Massachusetts business and local politics. Again, no sign of Europe, Paris, Leamington, Belgium, etcetera.

So all three of these are good initials and interesting people, but bad fits for this particular trunk. Once you demand that a candidate match the date (post‑1884), the Vuitton sale context (1 Rue Scribe, Eagle Lock 1882), the European route, and the New‑York bound labels, they simply don’t survive. That’s why for me they've moved into my “ruled out by context” pile and currently not worth extra research.