GLUCKSTADT, a word signifying the Fortunate Town, is a town of in the Duchy of Holstein, and belonging to the King of Denmark. The town, which is situated on the Elbe, where it receives a small river called the Rhu, is regularly and neatly built ; and the principal streets run into the market-place. The town is intersected by several canals, the principal one of which passes near the market-place, and is there joined by ano ther, which divides the town into two parts. From the marshy nature of the surrounding country, the road from the town to wards Krempe, passes over a stone causeway, nearly three quarters of a mile long. The town, therefore, can be easi ly laid under water on the land side. As there are no springs here, every good house is provided with a cistern, and the poor ere supplied with water from the harbour in the new moat. There is a free grammar school here, a Calvinist church, a Roman Catholic chapel, and a Jewish synagogue.
The foundations of this town were laid in a waste called the Wilderness, in 1617, by King Christian I V. ; who, with
the view of making it a commercial town, granted it par ticular privileges. Frederick HI. increased these privi leges, and made it the entrepot of all the merchandize of Iceland which came into the Elbe. The vessels of Gluck stadt carried their merchandize to A Rona and Hamburg. In 1738, Christian VI. founded a commercial college here; and in 1739 a house of correction and a workhouse were founded. In 1750, Frederick V. instituted a commission for clearing and n cpairing the harbour. The King of Den mark declared Gluckstadt a free port, and abolished the duties which vessels had formerly paid in passing the town. In 1782, a commercial company was formed, to which the king granted an octroi for thirty years. Its capital was 200,000 rix-dollars. and it was chiefly engaged in the coast ing trade and the whale fishery. Distance from Hamburg 28 miles north-west.