John C. Karel Sr. (or Carel)[note 1] (March 29, 1851 – August 23, 1914) was an Austrian Empire born American banker, and Democratic politician.
John Karel was born in March 1851, in the village of Nemecká, in what was then Zólyom County in the Austrian Empire—the area is now central Slovakia.
[2] He served as chairman of the Kewaunee County Board of Supervisors and was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1878, running on the Democratic Party ticket.
[4] A month after his election loss, he accepted appointment as vice-consul to Prague, in Austria-Hungary, under U.S. consul-general Charles Jonas.
[6] When Grover Cleveland returned to office in 1893, Karel was re-appointed to the consulate in Prague, and then, in 1894, he was appointed consul-general at Saint Petersburg, which was then the capital of the Russian Empire.