He was born on July 12, 1850, in New York City to German immigrants of French Huguenot origin from Kassel, Germany.
In 1868, he started working as a cook on the boats carrying iron ore across the Great Lakes.
He also became the office manager for the Arbeiter-Zeitung, a German-language anarchist newspaper edited by August Spies and Michael Schwab.
[2] The evidence presented against him was based on his political views and that he had attended socialist meetings, was associated with Arbeiter-Zeitung, and that a shotgun, a pistol and red flag were found in his home.
In his final address to the court, he declared: "There is no evidence to show that I was connected with the bomb-throwing, or that I was near it, or anything of that kind.
[5] On June 26, 1893, Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned Neebe and two of his co-defendants, having concluded that they were innocent.
Neebe, who had been involved with (and then expelled from) the Socialist Labor Party and active in the trade union movement prior to the Haymarket Affair, joined the Industrial Workers of the World soon after its founding in 1905.
He was listed as one of their main speakers in Chicago for Labor Day 1906, and attended the union's 1907 Convention.
Neebe was buried at the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument in German Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.