The
German
Texans
Glen E. Lich
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The
German
Texans
Glen E. Lich
~ The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures
at San Antonio
1996
The German Texans
by Glen E. Lich
Copyright © 1996
The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
801 South Bowie Street, San Antonio, Texas 78205-3296
Rex H. Ball, Executive Director
Carey Deckard, Director of Production
Production Staff: Sandra Carr, Jim Cosgrove, Laura Howard,
Arthur Ruiz, Tom Shelton, and Allee Wallace
International Standard Book Number 0-86701-072-X
Revised edition 1996
(First edition 1981)
This publication was made possible, in part, by grants and gifts from the
following foundations, agencies, and individuals:
German parricipants in the Texas Folklife Festival;
Doc and Gertrude Neuhaus of Mission;
The Order of the Sons of Hermann;
Edna Feuge Faust Memorial Trust-
First National Bank of New Braunfels, Trustee;
The Store of the Institute of Texan Cultures;
The Institute of Texan Cultures Associates;
Wurstfest Association of New Braunfels;
and the Houston Endowment, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Preface
Chapter One BEGINNINGS
"We hurried toward the sinking sun,
the magic West beckoning."
Vll
Chapter Two THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW 27
"I will be a free man in a free earth."
Chapter Three YEARS OF ESTABLISHMENT
"I have seen a rich, beautiful world filled with
resources, full of challenges for the industrious."
75
Chapter Four CULTURE ON A NEW FRONTIER 117
"And do not fail to bring the complete works
of Goethe."
Chapter Five TRADITION AND ASSIMILATION 153
"This culture is nearly at an end."
Chronology 189
Reading List 197
Notes 213
Acknowledgments 219
Photo Credits 223
Index 227
PRE F ACE
The German Texans is a scrapbook of favorite personal clip­pings
from the past, a collection oflives, events, pictures, and memo­ries.
It is also a view of Texas history through the eyes of some of the
most thoughtful and observant members of this ethnic group.
These interesting people tell of their strengths and weaknesses,
their anxieties, their frustrations, their humor, and their love of life.
They explain how life looked to them, what it meant either at the
time or looking back on it later, sometimes arguing among them­selves,
sometimes in total agreement. The sketches, events, paintings,
and recollections are seldom complete on their own, but together
they present a whole picture.
From our vantage point, the things these people said may
not always accurately reflect life or the conditions of the times. But
the German Texans made these judgments, and their own words be­long
to their self-portrait.
This book attempts to introduce as many aspects of the Ger­man-
Texan heritage as possible in a small volume conceived for a
general readership. The five chapters are impressionistic in their nec­essarily
compressed and selective treatment of large subjects, such as
the political, economic, and intellectual climate of a troubled Ger­many
in the early 1800's, or the often difficult assimilation of the
German immigrants into mainstream American political and eco­nomic
life. A chronology at the end of the book includes the Ger­mans
in a broader context of central European colonization in Texas,
and it places the entire migration in a framework of significant events
which have patterned the state's and region's development. The bibli­ography
lists basic English-language works, available in most public
libraries or readily attainable through interlibrary loan, and two Ger­man-
language references to facilitate genealogical research.
The picture essays bring the themes of each chapter together
graphically. Their purpose is to evoke feelings about history, feelings
that transcend facts, feelings from which the national myths of each
age spnng.
Glen E. Lich
Cypress Creek
July 1978
c H A p T E R o N E
"We hurried toward the sinking sun, the magic West beckoning. "
1 the 19th century, the lure of the Texas frontier attracted out­siders
to a land which promised adventure, abundance, and
good fortune. Early Texas was a wilderness dream for Ameri-cans
and Europeans. Some people imagined a new Garden of Eden
where disheartened people could make a new start. Others saw Texas
as an experiment in democracy, a chance for liberty and prosperity.
Still others searched for freedom from the limitations of a worn-out
homeland, from the taxes and hopeless debts, even from the law or a
troubled past.
Every dream is fed by myths and legends, and the dream of
Texas as a great golden land is no exception. One myth started with a
young romantic rebel named Karl Anton Postl, who escaped from a
European monastery and fled from Germany to the New World un­der
the assumed name of Charles Sealsfield. His novel about Texas life
in the 1830's, The Cabin Book, became a European bestseller. Texas
for Sealsfield was a "boundless sea of green," an unspoiled garden in
"God's world immaculate." The land was immeasurably beautiful and
rich, inhabited by legendary men, where "nails grew overnight into
horseshoes." Sealsfield admitted there was "indeed a lot of rabble in
Texas," but he assured his readers that the bones of such Texans would
"pave the road into a better tomorrow. Why do we love America?"
Seals field asked. "Because she makes us love Freedom for the whole
human race, and stands for the progress of all civilization." I
1
c
.~-.,
The view toward a new horizon as envisioned by Caspar David Friedrich
These words were welcome in a politically and economically
troubled Europe. Especially in Germany, Texas was quite popular as a
wild and fabulous land. A restless generation, growing to maturity be­tween
the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, was attracted by the
opportunities of this new land. One young girl, Ottilie Fuchs, whose
father gave up a good position for the uncertainty and hardships of
the frontier, recalled her feelings when she saw the ship: "Well do I re­member
my apprehensions as we boarded this fearsome crate which
was to carry us into the New World. Our former home and happy
childhood now lay behind us, soon to be followed by more serious
times. Yet we were cheerful. There was no lack of singing, everyone
attempting to encourage the other, with probably many a secret tear
falling into the waves. We hurried towards the sinking sun, the magic
West beckoning, as we wondered what the future held in store." 2
A philosophy professor, whose political views had landed
him in prison, turned his back on a distinguished career and set out
for Texas with his family. "I will be a free man in a free earth," Dr.
Ernst Kapp exclaimed. 3
A German officer and nobleman, who had long deliberated
whether he should leave what he had earned, was not disappointed by
what he found in Texas. Writing back to Germany to encourage his
friends, Friedrich W von Wrede reported, "I have seen a rich, beau-
2
tiful world filled with resources, full of challenges." He warned his
countrymen, though, "Not money, not even the sum of one's wishes
and hopes will decide his success in the New World. It takes the
energy of men who are determined to reach their goal. I know we
shall have hard battles to fight, but whoever will fall in this battle,
must fall." Then the old veteran added, "J want to work once more
with men willing to fight a new country and conquer." 4
For tradition-bound German families, abandoning their
homeland for the New World was a difficult, irrevocable decision
touching on every aspect of their lives. Later in life Ottilie Fuchs
Goeth recalled of her father, "It does not require any vast psycholog­ical
knowledge to understand that our father, Pastor Fuchs, wished to
provide greater opportunities for his children, rather than allow them
to be stifled, body and soul, through the miserable conditions prevail­ing
in Germany. To understand this, one needs only to visualize the
rigid bureaucracy of the 1830's and 1840's when Metternich was in
power, to sense the impending storm in the political atmosphere pre­cipitating
the Revolution of 1848; to recall the tyrannical suppression
of the writings of the 'Young Germany' writers, as well as the then-
Vision of the New World - Gartenlaube by Hermann Lungkwitz
3
On Live Oak Creek by Hermann Lungkwitz
prevailing oppressive rule of the church. Was Pastor Fuchs to watch
his girls at most attain positions as governesses, the boys starving
themselves to struggle through a university in order, perhaps too by
God's will alone, to earn a scanty living, thus perpetuating the old
miseries and wants from generation to generation? Or was it not bet­ter
to go to found a new home? The choice must have been a difficult
one, resolutely faced." 5
Charles Sealsfield's The Cabin Book was followed by a large
number of travel books, immigrant guides, poems, and songs about
Texas. When the group of Germans headed by Pastor Fuchs was sail­ing
for Texas, Hoffmann von Fallersleben, romantic poet and author
of the German anthem, "Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles,"
wrote farewell lyrics entitled "The Star of Texas" in honor of the
occasion. Later he wrote a number of other Texas songs, published
them in a small songbook, and sent them to his Texas friends.
Other writers and intellectuals of this restless young gener­ation
of the 1840's were also enchanted by the New World. Most of
them, except those protected by high birth, lived in political exile,
and they sympathized with the search for freedom and opportunity
which brought so many of their countrymen to the shores of Texas, as
well as to other states, South America, and Mexico. Their view of the
Germany which had driven them away was bitter. Writers like Georg
Buchner, Heinrich Heine, and Ludwig Borne announced that the
4
only cure for the problems of Germany was to leave them behind.
These writers had large followings among the radical "Young Ger­many"
liberals.
Inside Germany, in the midst of distinguished literary and
political circles, the same sentiment was expressed by Bettina von
Arnim, who was the sister of one famous writer, the widow of
another, and a friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich von
Schiller, and the Grimm brothers. Bettina carried her plea for redress
of social grievances directly to the king of Prussia. "Politics," she
quoted De Tocqueville, "should be directed to the happiness of the
little man." (, Leading a charmed life, Bettina could attempt what few
others dared, but her words in Dies Buch gehort dem Konig did
nothing to relieve the suffering of Germany's masses. Those who were
disillusioned with the hope of overcoming the problems of the home­land
dreamed of a "transatlantic Europe" where they would be free
and there was hope again.
Not only ethnic Germans but also other nationalities in Eu­rope
then governed by or historically associated with the German
monarchies took part in the immigration movement to America. A
significant part of this migration was directed toward Texas. In this
manner Austrians, Swiss, Tyrolians, Alsatians, Bohemians, Wends,
and Poles settled in the valleys of the Brazos, Colorado, Navidad,
Guadalupe, and San Antonio Rivers.
Bettina von Amim
5
Within the larger context, North America had been a goal of
German emigration since before the American Revolution. Waves of
Germans had come as early as 1710 to New York, New Jersey, Dela­ware,
Pennsylvania, and Maryland. These were followed after 1735
by Germans who settled in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Louisiana.
Throughout the 19th century, hundreds of thousands of Germans
entered the northern United States and settled, for the most part, in
the cities and farming communities of the Midwest. Germans from
the Volga Valley and the Black Sea in Russia also settled in the Mid­west,
where they introduced a rust-resistant strain of wheat which
revolutionized American agriculture. Germans and Swiss brought the
wine industry to California, and when grapevine blight wiped out the
vineyards, it was Germans who discovered a way to graft European
varietal grapes on healthy American rootstock.
After Texas gained its independence from Mexico in 1836 in
a struggle that caught the fancy of a host of German and American
adventurers, the young republic was pictured as a new utopia in pop­ular
German travel literature.
Although the search for religious freedom motivated some
Germans in the 1700's, it was seldom an active consideration for the
majority of German immigrants who reached Texas in the 1800's.
Social and economic improvement, along with political idealism,
were the primary goals for these Texas settlers. They responded to the
ancient German trait affectionately called Wanderlust, a romantic
yearning for exotic distant lands. They followed their longing for new
opportunities, scientific curiosity, and the desire to escape an over­crowded
homeland.
One young wanderer named Max Krueger, who stayed in
Texas to become a successful merchant, contended, "I may state here
without fear of contradiction that no nation in the wide world is sub­ject
to such an intense longing for travel as the German people. And
along with this desire for adventure is the urge for work There is
neither doctor nor medicine for this state of mind, and many a poor
fellow has had to succumb to it. What is it that causes these senti­mental
longings? It is the German soul," he concluded with exceed­ingly
great pride, "that something that is denied other races and sel­dom
understood by them." 7
An adventurous and energetic pioneer, Krueger recalled in
his memoir, "I longed to get a glimpse of the Wild West. Like many
other boys I had read Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales and similar Indian
stories which represented their redskinned heroes as brave and chival­rous
warriors. Those stories and the romance of a life in the wilder-
6
Aus dem Leben
eines Ansiedlers
ness had an alluring influence upon my fancy, and when I read in the
New Orleans Deutsche Zeitung a description of the atrocities perpe­trated
by the Comanches and Apaches on the German settlers, I was
fully determined to start for Texas to brave the dangers of the wild
Texas border life and see for myself what it actually was." 8
The venerable Pastor Adolphus Fuchs himself had been so
inspired as a young man in Germany by James Fenimore Cooper's
book The Last of the Mohicans that he and his boyhood hunting com­panion
"always addressed one another as Hawkeye and Uncas, even in
their correspondence." 9
While at sea in 1848, young Carl Hilmar Guenther, later in­fluential
in San Antonio, explained in a letter to his parents that he
felt tired of the Old Country and disappointed with the prospects of
his future there. "As soon as I left our own home and made little trips
around the country to acquaint myself with conditions in Germany, I
7
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;1. / . t, 1 ;
Ottftied Hans von Meusebach
found that nothing appealed to me. Business and life in general
seemed dead. Not until I made my final decision to leave did I ever
feel joy or peace." 10
Young Baron Ottfried Hans von Meusebach, who was to be­come
the farsighted leader of large numbers of German colonists in
Texas, admitted in an 1844 letter to Count Castell of the Adelsverein
that Texas and the frontier appealed to his scientific curiosity. "For
several years," he wrote, "I have been considering going to America to
obtain a large enough property to be the basis of nature study and
furtherance thereof in those rich fields. I have had my eyes especially
on Texas." 11
Chief among the causes of emigration for the great masses of
Germans coming to Texas was the problem of overpopulation in the
homeland. In the preface of a book banned by the German police in
1829, Gottfried Duden, a German traveler in the United States,
wrote that "most of the evils from which the inhabitants of Europe,
and particularly of Germany, suffer arise from overpopulation and
are of such a nature that all remedies remain without effect unless a
thinning out of the population precedes them." 12
Some emigrants apparently thought to escape what they
foresaw as an imminent catastrophe for Europe by coming to Amer­ica.
Franz Kettner, who settled in Comanche lands northwest of
Fredericksburg, expressed this in a letter to Germany. "Much land
around here has been bought by people still living in Germany who
want a place of refuge to come to during the bad times which will
soon come to Germany. All people in America are agreed that there
will be a mighty clash in Germany, yes, in all of Europe, in which not
8
even a child will be safe. America will not remain neutral in the com­ing
revolution but will help the republicans. Our country gains
strength every year and could show the Old World who is boss." 13
By the early 1840's, several thousand Germans had survived
the eight- to twelve-week voyages across the Atlantic to new homes in
the Republic of Texas. They came predominantly from provinces in
northern Germany and concentrated in Austin, Colorado, Fayette,
Washington, DeWitt, and Victoria Counties.
German interest in Texas entered a new phase in 1842, when
an assembly of five sovereign princes and 16 noblemen convened at
Biebrich on the Rhine near Mainz and formed a society to promote
German colonization in Texas. This poorly organized, uninformed,
badly underfinanced organization is best known as the Adelsverein.
The first colonists sponsored by the Adelsverein landed at
Galveston and then sailed to Indianola in 1844. The records of the
German Immigration Company in the Texas General Land Office in
Austin indicate that most of these settlers were from the provinces of
western and northwestern Germany. Despite the great misery of the
first two years, the Adelsverein brought nearly 7,400 German immi­grants
to Texas between 1844 and 1847. As the massive migration
gained momentum from then until 1860, about 20,000 more Ger­mans
moved to Texas.
The Adelsverein Germans established New Braunfels, Fred­ericksburg,
and several villages on the Llano River. Smaller farming
communities in Bexar, Guadalupe, Comal, Blanco, Gillespie, Mason,
Kendall, and Kerr Counties grew from these settlements. In the Hill
Country today, more than in any other place in Texas, this European
culture from the Adelsverein colonists has lingered to the end of the
20th century.
9
lAarm village in the early 1800's . ..
Jobs in the German cities and countryside were
scarce, and laborers were poorly paid. Taxes were of­ten
oppressive, and few people had more money than was required to
buy necessities. The real problems throughout Germany were wide­spread
poverty and a population too large to be supported ade­quately
by the resources of the land, yet prices paid to farmers for
their produce were quite low, and a great deal of bartering went on in
the town because of the scarcity of money. Ministers and school­teachers
were sometimes paid "in kind" for their services, which
meant that their salaries were exchanges of food, clothing, and lodg­ing
rather than money.
The poverty was terribly oppressive. Young men, unless they
inherited their fathers' business or land, had no place to go. By law
most farms could not be divided, so only one child in a family inher­ited
a secure income. Girls had one choice-marriage, and it was hard
to start a new family without a house to live in.
One town chronicle reports that for years no one could
afford sugar. During these years a special treat for children, the chron­icle
continues, was the "oven cake," which mothers made by splitting
open a potato and roasting it atop the wood stove in the kitchen, then
spreading it with bacon drippings.
}. B. C. Corot
10
LUDWIG BORNE
{A,cording to a friend in 1827, the German "republi­can"
journalist Ludwig Borne was "a peaceful man
of small stature, very delicate but not sickly, a small
head with thinning black hair, just a touch of red in the cheeks, jovial
light brown eyes, with kindness and human warmth in his face and in
every gesture, a friendly tone in his voice."
Born in 1786 in Frankfurt am Main as Low Baruch, he spent
his childhood in the degrading ghetto existence of an Orthodox Jew
of that city. Borne traveled to Paris immediately after the July 1830
revolution and remained in France until his death in 1837.
He was the first German journalist whose writings usually
criticized the conservative political order in Germany. He attacked
reactionary attitudes and supported popular freedom movements in
his fatherland. His criticism was at times witty, at times satirical.
Borne devoted all of his efforts to promoting a liberalism in
Germany after the French example. "He was a patriot from his crown
to his smallest toe," said his one-time friend and later enemy Hein­rich
Heine. Borne's Lettersfrom Paris (1832-1834) , marked by a pas­sionate
and moving love of country, strongly influenced a small but
radical group of writers who called themselves "Young Germany."
11
Of freedom and life only he is deserving
Who every day must conquer them anew.
America! You are more fortunate
Than this old world ...
Aye! such a throng I fain would see
Stand on a free earth, among a people free.
].W v. Goethe
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"The Battle Song of San Jacinto" by Hoffman von Fallersleben,
translated into English by Adolphus Fuchs
HOPE
Men sing and dream of better days and hunt for golden
treasure. Countries rise and countries fall, but people search on
for richer lives.
Hope brings man into the world and clothes the joyful
child. The youth pursues its gentle call, but it survives the old
man's grave ....
It is no empty, vague delusion in the mind of fools; the
heart proclaims that we are born for better worlds. And what the
inner spirit speaks is not lost on the soul that seeks.
Friedrich von Schiller
12
THE STAR OF TEXAS
A farewell poem for our dear Pastor Fuchs
(The melody is that of "Nach Seville.")
On to Texas, on to Texas,
Where the star in blue field
Prophesies a new world,
And makes every heart burn
For right and freedom and for truth­This
is where my heart longs to go.
On to Texas, on to Texas,
Where the curse of tradition
And the old blind faith
In the face of pure human love
Is finally turned to ashes and dust­This
is where my heart longs to go.
On to Texas, on to Texas,
Where the plow becomes the sign
Of reconciliation and uprising,
So that mankind can celebrate again
Their May Day of revival-
This is where my heart longs to go.
On to Texas, on to Texas,
Golden star, you are the messenger
Of our new, better lives:
Since what free hearts hope,
They never hope in vain.
Welcome to you, golden star!
August Hoffmann von Fallersleben
13
MEUSEBACH AND THE BERLIN CIRCLE
Tranquility in a Troubled Time
'B aron Ottfried Hans von Meusebach was educated for a ca­reer
befitting the son of an ancient family. As a boy he first
studied mining and natural sciences, then law, government,
economics, and banking. He read five languages and spoke English
quite fluently.
When his father, a high justice, moved his family from
Meusebach's boyhood home on the Rhine to Berlin, young Meuse­bach
was introduced into the elegant society of the Prussian capital.
He especially impressed the charming Bettina von Arnim, who was
struck by the young man's inquisitive and idealistic mind. He was a
likeable fellow and shared Bettina's devotion for the great poet Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe.
Through Bettina von Arnim and others, Meusebach became
acquainted with some of Germany's greatest writers and intellectuals.
This "Berlin Circle" included General von Clausewitz (the most im­portant
modern military tactician), the Humboldt brothers (one a
minister of state and founder of the new Berlin University, the other a
scientist and explorer), the Grimm brothers (philologists who helped
establish the modern study of folklore with their collections of Ger­man
fairy tales), the critic Varnhagen von Ense (whose nephew carne
to Texas), and August Hoffmann von Fallersleben (who wrote the
Texas songs).
Their political views were far ahead of their time in con­servative
Prussia. Here Meusebach heard the first echoes of utopian
socialistic experiments like Brook Farm in America. He also shared
the concern of the Berlin Circle that the tyranny of Prince Metter­nich's
police state had closed the door on liberalism and nationalism,
the twin daughters of the French Revolution.
As a lawyer and later as mayor of a small Prussian town,
Meusebach worked for national unity and political freedom, but he
could accomplish little since these reforms were outlawed by the gov­ernment.
Still he was inspired by an idea from the philosopher Fichte
that "every man must, in the most literal sense, carve out his own
destiny." Like many younger people, Meusebach was disheartened by
the conditions he saw in his homeland, and although he hated to
think of leaving Germany, he knew he had no real future there. He
discussed the matter ofleaving with his family. His father warned that
life would not be easy. His mother only advised, "Finish what you
begin, son."
14
The novelist Sealsfield's picture of Texas as a savage and
exotic land haunted Meusebach's mind, and he brought the matter up
with Bettina and others of the Berlin Circle, where considerable New
World idealism prevailed as a result of Baron Alexander von Hum­boldt's
explorations and the journeys of Prince Maximilian von Wied
and Duke Paul of Wiirttemberg.
On the night that he spoke with the group about going to
America, Bettina had brought along a young friend, a strikingly beau­tiful
girl named Elisabethe von Hardenberg. She listened attentively
to the young man's visions of the New World and its opportunities.
A warm friendship began between them that night, and they
saw much of each other in the following months. Elisabethe was also
fascinated by the New World and thought that she could be happy
there. Eventually Meusebach made his decision to sail for Texas but
not until he and Elisabethe had promised each other to marry upon
his return. Then they would return together to the home he would
prepare for her in Texas.
Dmwing by Elisabethe von Hardenberg, a fontasy influenced by Charles Seals field
15
, .., h~?t\
i
(
'.
/'
/
Beh,. adapted to the new land without
great difficulty. His log and half-timber, or
Fachwerk, home on the Guadalupe near
Sisterdale was the stopping place of
travelers Duke Paul ofWiirttemberg and
Frederick Law Olmsted. It contained a
harpsichord, a post office, and Behr's own
office {is justice of the peace.
\" ",
Ottomar von Behr was the son of the
prime minister of Anhalt-Kothen and an
acquaintance of Alexander von Humboldt
and Bettina von Arnim.
OTTO MAR VON BEHR
, ,
- .
One pioneer of the Hill Country, Ottomar von Behr, was seri­ously
concerned with the problems facing German farmers
in a rugged terrain with thoroughly unpredictable weather
unlike anything in Germany. The scholarly Behr wrote a very practi-cal
book, Good Advice for Immigrants, on farming and ranching in
Texas, with particular emphasis on the advantages of sheep raising.
16
THE ADELSVEREIN
An Essay in Pictures
']§e eyes of all Germany, no, the eyes of all Europe are fixed on
us and our undertaking; German princes, counts, and noble­men
stand at the head and no doubt can remember the his-torical
glory of their ancestors and bring new crowns to old glory
while they at the same time are ensuring immeasurable riches for their
children and grandchildren.
Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels
No sooner had a favorable report come back from Texas in
1843 than the Adelsverein determined upon a grand colonization
scheme. The next year the members, now having grown to 24 rulers
and nobles, incorporated as a stock company, and "a resolution was
adopted that speculation and political projects were not contemplated
and that the society, out of purely philanthropical reasons, would de­vote
itself to the support and direction of German emigration to
Texas." 14 The following four objectives were formulated:
17
to improve the lot of the working class who are without
employment, thus controlling their increasing poverty;
to unite the emigrants by giving them protection
through this Association in order to ease their burden by
mutual assistance;
to maintain contacts between Germany and the emi­grants,
and to develop maritime trade by establishing
business connections;
to find a market for German crafts in these settlements,
and to provide a market in Germany for the products of
these colonies. 15
With this, the leaders considered the major part of the undertaking
completed. All that remained, they naively thought, was getting the
emigrants together in Antwerp or Bremen, provisioning, transport­ing,
and lodging them, and finding a suitable place for settlement. It
was decided that the 4,OOO-acre Nassau Farm purchased for this pur­pose
in Fayette County was too close to existing American towns for
the Germans to be able to preserve their identity. Furthermore, the
Adelsverein's 3,OOO,OOO-acre holding, the so-called "Fisher-Miller
Grant" which lay between the Llano and Colorado Rivers in West
Texas, was largely unsuited to farming and wholly occupied by hostile
Indians. Immediately upon his arrival in Texas, Prince Solms nego­tiated
the purchase of a tract of land on the Guadalupe River for the
first German settlement under the auspices of the Adelsverein.
Abschied der Auswanderer - The Emigrant's Farewell
Pioneer Memorial Museum, Fredericksburg
18
Carl, Prince of Solms,
Lord of Braunfels, Grafenstein,
Miinzenberg, Wildenfels, and
Sonnen walde, Commissioner­General
of the Society for the
Protection of German
Immigrants in Texas,
the Adelsverein
t;
19
Duke Adolph of Nassau,
Protector of the Adelsverein
Prince Frederick of Prussia
20
Braunfels Castle
on the Lahn River
The ancient way of life yielded only
slowly to the forces of time. For the
peasant whose livelihood sprang
from the earth, the bonds that held
these men to their homeland were
not simple, personal ones. The ties
were deeper, more intimate. The
peasant was part of a community,
and the community was held to the
land as a whole. Always the start was
the village. This was the fixed point
by which he knew his relationship
with all humanity.
Oscar Handlin
Q;il1hllll111mIllO-Verlmo.
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(
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(If Mfti~ brr Otrthl JIUIt e4utr ~If~ ~J\!\)I1n~tm lit :tU'jI{ MIl ocfl~
~U .
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oWiImnt. ~~~~ &lllnhl!~mtlI '" rtiQtll
eu . Sf:t;", III 'On "'~fJ ~Mtoeio. IRt~\lbnf !ltU', f~it jrttrr
et '41 StSn:TNiriiS Wfirgt, in' 'OaIl .3a~Cllbt, ill IM~ tr f\1j btfltit ic/illWt, nb !\lit
fof4t but G:imtoUlbtUf b.r4 tUtt1t I'SfIII:eIt WI !Umin$ Oil .on nb ettll'! ItUM
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.. 8m411tt, etm i~o~ "i~tnb tillnn 3titr~mt UII bn! 3*,,", "II klri4ltlCf
a,041 Gn sm~IIf1, titfrn i!.t"~llri4 Sollli 't«.l~hr-~rc ~~ffml jlt tlifrta.
5.l.
eu fillhl l'if{n Utmtr~:J 'Od eallWI u tn' f~CSf1lMt rNiJrma tk~bltlnsrll elAU.
fl, .al l'n ~i~n'~II~tTtr
t) ~ri '~~(~"l'crf~f~ rntt :l~~rt, \I~al :r~llt ~rr tk{l~. C!in_tirllllS '11 gru4Mt,
11.1 tm ~f1l'ifIi~ltll l'rintmirn \11 t-tmtilOlj
2) ill l'mlftlhn .3til~~f'\lUiu liini;tbn atTn- l.'Qn~ JI( ul"I~~ntll .~ ill a.eM ,lit
tf~~frrn;
3) rill $~{'116~d M; r"inCIII (IIrun~ llnl' !.!I~rtn ;11 rrri~ltll;
4) If .. Nil,' ~~1I1 18(1(;11' ,nl\~Ni'Mn Lf~rrllii~li~lh 'J'e~pr ua~ ~m srfr,li"'rll tit,
ftillllnnIlJtllt'd\'.,"t f61111:' lltTll ldllrlIII(Ul1tmPtf,",
Prince Solms's coat of arms
21
The contractual terms be­tween
the noblemen and
the colonists were carefully
stipulated in written docu­ments
bearing the Adels­verein
seal with the Lone
Star and clutch of arrows.
Upon payment of fees, each
emigrant was promised a
specified number of acres
under the conditions that
he live on the land for three
years, fence and cultivate
15 acres of land, build a
dwelling on his property,
and submit in his conduct
to the rules of the Society
and the laws of the land.
Immigration contract from
the General Land Office,
Austin
THE VOYAGE
As a young girl remembered it ...
Our journey in the fall of the year was at the worst imagin­able
time to sail. The food was wretched, the water barely
drinkable, and we were seasick throughout most of the
voyage. It was particularly rough in the North Sea, with its choppy
green waves.
Ottilie Fuchs Goeth, 1840's
22
And as recalled by a wealthy matron-
W e have bid Bremen farewell since yesterday and
spent our first night on the ship. As soon as all
packages are loaded and arranged and the wind is
somewhat more favorable, we shall be on our way. The cabin is large,
and alongside are the rooms, which can be locked, each of which
sleeps four persons, two below and two above. The bunks are suffi­ciently
wide and long; only the height is lacking, but we will get used
to that. Above our deck is a very elegant cabin which costs no more
and has many advantages. Unfortunately, it was taken. However, we
have the right to go there. Our cabin holds 32. There are many
young and very noble-appearing young men on board. And there is
Dr. Ernst Kapp and his family and, most interesting of all, the
Austrian Deputy with wife and child. The woman sweeps the stairs
with her yellow dress and mantilla. Also we have the Frankfurt
Deputy, Hertzberg.
A little bell summoned us to the deck. The captain, standing
in front of a festively decorated pulpit, read a suitable song out of a
Reformed Church hymnal and then read with a loud strong voice an
uplifting poem entitled "The Storm" from the Ocean Temple. The
poem described the circumstances of the emigrants, from the weak
to the strong man, the dangers of the ocean voyage, the storm and
the rescue, the new and often sad conditions of the new home. It was
so affecting that eyes were filled while all about us was the surging
ocean, the swaying ship, and the poorly clad folks from the middle
deck who sat at the captain's feet with devout faces paled by sea­sickness.
23
Amanda Fallier von Rosenberg
aboard the Franziska, 1840's
RATIONS AT SEA
Sunday
Plum soup
Vz lb. beef
Meal pudding
Monday
Pea soup
Vz lb. pork
Thick rice with syrup
Tuesday
Barley soup
Vz lb. beef
Lentils or beans
Wednesday
Navy bean soup
V2lb. beef
Sauerkraut or green beans
Thursday
Plum soup
Vz lb. beef
Meal pudding
24
Friday
Pea soup
Vz lb. pork
Sauerkraut or green beans
Saturday
Green pea soup
V2lb. beef
Lentils or beans
Weekly rations for each adult
4 oz. coffee
2 oz. tea
8 oz. sugar
16 oz. butter
5 lb. bread
1,4 bottle wine
Further, for each adult
1 V2 hogshead drinking water
for voyage to Texas
30-40 lbs. potatoes,
according to season
Salt, mustard, pepper,
vinegar, medicines
Sophienburg Museum
One of my relatives who had gone to Texas in the forties with the
Adelsverein had come back on a visit .... He told many enthusiastic
stories about his new home. I was thrilled when I listened to him
describing the charms of that recently opened paradise, the eternally
blue sky, the radiant sun above the great uncultivated, uninhabited
land, tempting tropical fruits, Indians and wild animals, too, to
break the monotony of existence, and above all else, golden freedom.
Texas became the land of my dreams.
Emma Murck Altgelt
,,::::' ''Jr<~~.t~~ I .. ,,-~. ' ,:::::.;:~~~~::.:;:~:: il
. :;:f;;;:::"~~ ' Ao. ' .
.1. ...': ,... _.!!-.
'!' " ,.
25
c H A p T E R T w o
"/ will be a free man in a free earth."
~Peless conditions on the Continent turned the
minds of many Germans to the dream of building
a model homeland in the New World. This ideal of
a "New Germany" in America united people from all walks of life.
Doctors, teachers, ministers, scientists, merchants, artisans, farmers,
students, and soldiers defied laws prohibiting their departure. Pro­fessionals
gave up promising careers, while farmers sold out at losses
or even forfeited their lands, and women and children sacrificed
their established homes for hardships and uncertain futures.
They were a courageous lot, and many lost their lives. Most
were completely unprepared for the experiences they encountered,
and some failed dismally. But all shared the feeling that the promise
of success growing from their hard work far outweighed their former
security. Professor Ernst Kapp, accustomed to the genteel life of the
cities, expressed what many felt.
"I depart voluntarily from my teaching position. 1 leave
Germany, exchanging comfort for toil, the familiar pen for the un­familiar
spade, but 1 will be a free man in a free earth."
Texas was an adventure, the brink of the unknown, and life
in the New World was an abrupt change, laden with hardship and
danger. The undertaking was especially difficult for immigrants who
tried it alone. Going into a strange land encouraged relatives and
friends to stay together for protection and assurance.
27
Sometimes, though, a particularly adventurous individual
went ahead to scout our the best location for settlement. These "trail­blazers"
then sent home instructions for those who waited to follow.
With ties strengthened by kinship, association, and letters, neighbors
from villages in Germany often settled together in the strange new
homeland.
Initially these Germans settled in small farm villages. As the
population increased and the towns grew, farmers and ranchers
moved across a vast expanse of land, carrying civilization farther and
farther westward.
Early Settlers
The arrival in 1831 of Friedrich Ernst and Charles Fordtran
marked the real beginning of German colonization in Texas. Ernst,
former head gardener and bookkeeper for the Duke of Oldenburg,
and Fordtran, a tanner from Westphalia, joined forces in New York
in their search for a new home. Friedrich Ernst brought his large
family with him; Fordtran was single. They took passage to New
Orleans with the intention of going up the Mississippi to Missouri,
where large numbers of Germans were settling.
In New Orleans, however, they learned that every settler
who came to Texas with his family would receive a league of land
from the Mexican government. Missouri was forgotten, and the
small group secured transportation to the Texas coast. Ernst's daugh­ter,
later Caroline von Hiniiber, said of her first impression, "We
landed at Harrisburg, which consisted of about five or six log houses,
a sawmill, and a store or two. We remained five weeks, while Ford­tran
went ahead of us." IG
"From Harrisburg," her mother wrote, "we continued by
oxcart to the town of San Felipe de Austin, located fifty miles to the
west. The town had 300 to 400 inhabitants. Here we now sat on the
edge of all civilization, because just westerly the Indians lived, and no
white man had ever crossed the Mill Creek. My husband undertook
an inspection from here in order to select some land, and thus he
came to the fords of the creek where Industry is now located. Since
the romantic location with its beautiful waters and woods pleased
my husband, he had one league of land surveyed by the Mexican
commissioner." 17
To the Germans, the earlier Spanish settlements to the west
were unknown and were no support for their efforts. They indeed
felt they were the first settlers.
28
Friedrich Ernst, like many who followed, was ill-prepared
for pioneering. He did not know how to build a cabin, hated guns,
and had brought none of the necessary equipment for clothing his
family on the frontier. Still, he had an unbounded love for his new
country, and he poured out his feelings in an eloquent letter to a
friend in Oldenburg, urging him to come to Texas at once. The man
turned the letter over to a local newspaper, and it was widely pub­lished.
Ernst's contagious enthusiasm spread through the German
states, starting the first steady stream of German migration to Texas.
Ernst assured fellow immigrants, "I have a stopping place on my
estate for my countrymen until they have selected a league of land.
Colonel Austin has recently promised to take care that German arriv­als
be settled immediately." 18
Many knew Texas only through Friedrich Ernst's letter. Ac­cording
to an account written in 1876 by Robert Justus Kleberg Sr.,
father of prominent South Texas rancher Robert J. Kleberg Jr., whose
descendants today own the King Ranch, the Ernst letter painted an
irresistibly beautiful landscape, "with enchanting scenery and de­lightful
climate similar to that of Italy, the most fruitful soil and
republican government, with unbounded personal and political lib­erty,
free from so many disadvantages and evils of old countries." 19
Despite these glowing advantages, the new participants had diffi­culty
in making a fresh start. "Most of them," Friedrich Ernst's
daughter observed, "managed very badly at first, using all their
money before they had learned to accommodate themselves to their
new surroundings." 20
Rosa von Roeder Kleberg, a young bride when she came,
confessed that circumstances were very different from their expec­tations.
"My brothers had pictured pioneer life as one of hunting and
fishing, of freedom from the restraints of Prussian society; and it was
hard for them to settle down to the drudgery and toil of splitting rails
and cultivating the field, work which was entirely new to them."
Rosa Kleberg's father was Ludwig Sigismund Anton von
Roeder, who, with his family, left Marienmiinster, their feudal estate,
to follow the call of Ernst's letter. The father at first carried on a
butcher's trade in Harrisburg while the von Roeder sisters learned to
sew and make clothing for sale. "We were all unused to that kind of
work," Rosa Kleberg later stated, "but we felt that we must save our
money; and, when required by necessity, one learns to do what one
has never done before. We had our pleasures, though. Our piano had
been damaged; but we played on it anyway, and the young people
danced to the music." 21
29
The settlement of Ernst and Fordtran in Austin County
grew into a small German village. Named "Industry" by neighboring
Anglo-Americans, who were amazed at the speed with which the
German "greenhorns" caught on, the town became a favorite stop­ping
place for immigrants on their way from landings on the Texas
coast to their new homesites in the interior. Although Industry was
actually the first German settlement in Texas, its official founding
dates from 1838 when Ernst laid out the town. By then three other
German settlements were in existence. Biegel in Fayette County was
established in 1832. Biegel's Settlement, as it was also known, was a
cosmopolitan gathering of German- and French-speaking settlers
from the French province of Lorraine, the German-speaking cantons
of Switzerland, Prussia, Poland, Denmark, and the Rhine Valley. The
land, settled in 1834 by Robert Kleberg and the von Roeders was
named Cat Spring because one of the von Roeder boys supposedly
shot a wildcat there. About three years later, a small group of colo­nists
founded Frelsburg in adjoining Colorado County.
From the coming of Ernst and Fordtran in 1831 to the
beginning of organized immigration in 1844, many Germans came
to Texas, singly or in small groups. They settled generally at Galves­ton
or Houston or in the fertile valleys between the Brazos and
Charles Fordtran
30
Colorado Rivers where Ernst had established a foothold. Only 218
Germans were reported in Texas in 1836. Their numbers swelled
into the thousands, however, during the 1840's.
The Adelsverein Settlements
In 1842, ten years after Ernst and Fordtran built their first
homes near Austin's colony, the Adelsverein sent Prince Leiningen
and Count Boos Waldeck to Texas to seek grants for extensive Ger­man
settlement. Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels arrived in Galveston
the next summer to prepare for the first shiploads of immigrants that
winter. He bought a tract on Matagorda Bay to use as a landing place
from which the new arrivals could be supplied and organized for
their journey into the interior, then negotiated the purchase of lands
on the Guadalupe River for a permanent settlement.
Three shiploads of Germans arrived at Galveston in Decem­ber
1844 and proceeded down the coast to the new port which
Prince Carl named Carlshafen, "Carl's Harbor," later known as Indi­anola
on Matagorda Bay. A warehouse and other facilities were
erected, but there were no living accommodations for these hun­dreds
of immigrants, weary and sick from their long voyage. Al­though
forced to camp temporarily on the open beach in wet winter
weather, these first immigrants fared comparatively well. Mter a brief
stay at Carlshafen, they traveled in wagons and oxcarts to the land
Prince Solms had secured for their settlement. On Good Friday,
'; .. ' , ~~ .'
The houses and businesses of Galveston looked to Europeans like a town
of fragile paper toys.
31
'. " t+;,
The port of Indianola grew to become an important military depot and export center,
then was wrecked by two hurricanes in 1875 and 1886 and became a ghost town.
March 21, 1845, the prince led the first wagon train to this verdant
woodland on the border of the swift-running Comal River and es­tablished
a town, naming it after his ancestral estate of Braunfels on
the Lahn River.
New Braunfels, the first colonial German village in Texas,
changed quickly from a temporary settlement into a comfortable
Old World town on the Texas frontier. In 1846 hospital sheds were
built for those who were ill. Teams of men worked together on their
own homes, a town church, and a fortress, and then laid out the
streets. The following winter, when the second wave of colonists
landed on the coast, conditions were altogether different. Funds
from Germany for the settlement were depleted because the German
nobles had vastly underestimated expenses. Prince Solms had run up
large debts in Texas and Louisiana of which he had kept no record.
Furthermore, hostilities had broken out between the United States
and Mexico, and the teamsters who had previously contracted to
transport the new arrivals inland were conscripted to haul weapons
and munitions for the army from the Texas coast to Mexico.
Stranded at Carlshafen in miserable shacks and dugouts, ap­proximately
a thousand people died, and hundreds more succumbed
on the way inland. A daughter of Pastor Louis Cachand Ervendberg,
first pastor of the New Braunfels settlement, recounted her parents'
description of the misery of this second immigrant trip in 1846.
"They were on the road for a long time, and most of the
people had some kind of fever or scurvy from poor food. Some had
32
died in Indianola or were left behind too ill to travel; there were a lot
who never lived to reach New Braunfels. It rained all the time, and
that made it hard with the oxcarts sticking in the mud and the poor
colonists, people who were used to a comfortable life back in Ger­many,
wet and miserable. Then, when they were close enough to see
the nice place Prince Solms had ready, there was another big dis­appointment.
The Guadalupe River was so high it could not be
crossed, and they had to camp at the old ford. I don't know how long
they waited for the river to go down, but several more died there and
were buried nearby."
"Provisions were scarce," she continued. "We had plenty of
fish from the river, but not much meat. Ammunition was too hard to
get. Milk and butter, beef and hog meat all came in due time, as did
sweet potatoes and a few vegetables but no Irish potatoes for ever so
long. We were hungry for fruit and had to be warned by our doctor
against eating the fruit of the cactus. Parched barley and dried sweet
potatoes were used when coffee gave out, and the men smoked all
kinds of weeds when they couldn't get tobacco. Everything we could
not raise for ourselves had to be hauled to us overland. Bales of un­bleached
cotton cloth had to come ... from Mexico, and we had to
dye it ourselves." 22
Despite disease and death, New Braunfels grew steadily.
Along with hard-working farmers and craftsmen who made up the
majority of the Adelsverein immigrants, the arrivals included minor
nobles, gentry, and many highly educated intellectuals. When pale­ontologist
and geologist Dr. Ferdinand Roemer, sent by the Berlin
Academy, first viewed the fledgling town in 1846, he predicted that
the tree-filled market square would be large enough to accommodate
a city of 12,000 inhabitants and foresaw that the town's fortunate
location would ensure success and steady growth.
Ida Kapp observed that, in 1850, "New Braunfels presented
a pitiable impression with its little slab houses along the dirt side
streets which during rains became bottomless. There were, however,
three bakeries, other artisans, and many stores." Accustomed to
fashionable German city life, Mrs. Kapp found the transition to the
frontier settlement somewhat abrupt but admitted, "I envy all the
young people of 17 and 18 years of age who come here. Even if they
come with little or no cash, 1 firmly believe they can become inde­pendent
within five to six years if they manage well." 23
A third eyewitness of the town's growth, a Northerner on a
horseback journey through the South in 1857, just 12 years after the
founding of New Braunfels, praised the little city because of its fine
33
Old Lutheran Church in New Braunfils
food. Frederick Law Olmsted, America's great landscape architect,
described his dinner on his first night in New Braunfels: "An excel­lent
soup is set before us, and in succession there follow two courses
of meat, neither of them pork and neither of them fried, two dishes
of vegetables, salad, compote of peaches, coffee with milk, wheat
bread from the loaf, and beautiful, sweet butter-not only such
butter as I have never tasted south of the Potomac before, but such as
I have been told a hundred times it was impossible to make in a
southern climate. What is the secret? I suppose it is extreme clean­liness,
and careful and thorough working." 24
In 1845 Prince Solms was replaced as Commissioner Gen­eral
of the Adelsverein by Baron Ottfried Hans von Meusebach, a
visionary but practical leader who recognized that the future welfare
of the settlers depended upon their becoming ''Americans.'' He en­couraged
the Germans to spread out into the fertile valleys of the
Hill Country; within a year, five new colonies were established in a
network of small outposts stretching 150 miles northwest from New
Braunfels into the previously unsettled lands of the Comanches.
Meusebach was a perfect leader-intelligent, learned, and
sagacious. He found the administrative affairs of the colony in a
deplorable condition. Settlers were disgruntled, poorly provisioned,
34
and inadequately housed, and more boatloads were on their way
from Germany. Working with great haste, Meusebach was able to
straighten out the tangled finances of the colony and reestablish the
Adelsverein's credit in Texas. He then bought 10,000 acres on credit
on the Pedernales River 80 miles northwest of New Braunfels.
The paleontologist Ferdinand Roemer witnessed the found­ing
of the new colony, named "Friedrichsburg," or "Fredericksburg,"
in honor of Prince Frederick of Prussia. The departure of colonists to
Fredericksburg finally took place on April 23, 1846. The train con­sisted
of 16 wagons, drawn by two or three yoke of oxen, and 180
persons, including the mounted convoy which accompanied the ex­pedition
for their protection. The departure of this company proved
of general interest also, for it signaled the spread of "civilization" into
the northwest Hill Country of Texas. Up to this time, the area was
sparsely and exclusively inhabited by roving bands of Indians; where­as
the Anglo-American had otherwise been the first to advance into
the western wilderness, here the German took on this role.
Although life both in Fredericksburg and in New Braunfels
was exceedingly primitive during the first years, one woman in Fred­ericksburg
exclaimed that "it was a great delight to get away from the
miserable conditions, the lonesomeness, and the destitution that had
surrounded the Germans in Indianola." 25
John 0. Meusebach
35
In the early days Fredericksburg, the second colony of the Adelsverein, enjoyed a
pleasant location but was vulnerable to Indian attack from the surrounding hills.
To secure additional land for his settlers, Meusebach rode
into the Indian hunting grounds with a small party. Mter making
peace with the less-warlike Wacos, they continued farther north to
deal with the fierce Comanches. According to Dr. Roemer, "When
they were still several miles from the valley of the San Saba, a deputa­tion
of Comanche Indians met them and inquired the purpose of
their coming. Later, on entering the valley itself, a royal reception
was accorded them by the Indians. About two hundred dressed in
festive attire had arranged themselves on a hill in military fo rmation.
After Herr von Meusebach had ridden toward them and by empty­ing
his rifle had given proof of his confidence in them, murual greet­ings
were exchanged, and a number of presents were distributed
among the chiefs."
"The negotiations began after the peace pipe, from which
each one took two or three puffs, had made the rounds twice. Herr
von Meusebach told the chiefs the following: He had come with his
people on the peace path to view the land and to greet them as
friends. They would also be received as friends when visiting the
cities of his people. He now desired to go up the river to see the old
Spanish fort. Upon his return from there, he desired to have a coun­cil
with the principal chiefs ... to tell them of his further intentions.
36
"One of the chiefs replied with great dignity as follows: The
hearts of his people had been alarmed when they had seen so many
strange people, who had not previously announced their coming and
whose intention they did not know. But now, since they were assured
that they had come as friends and had declared the purpose of their
coming, all was well.
"The second meeting with the chiefs took place toward
noon. The negotiations proceeded in the manner described previ­ously.
After discussing the matter thoroughly, which is characteristic
of the mistrustful and cautious nature of the Indians, the proposals
made by Herr von Meusebach on the previous day were accepted.
The council ended by mutually embracing each other, whereby the
Comanches tried to show the degree of their friendship by the
strength of their embrace. They were then served a meal of venison
and rice which Herr von Meusebach had had prepared for them." 26
On March 2, 1847, the Comanche chiefs signed a treaty
which opened more than 3,000,000 acres of the Fisher-Miller Grant
beyond the San Saba River for German colonization and explora­tion.
After the treaty was signed, Meusebach encouraged German
families to settle the Hill Country as farmers and ranchers, then
turned his attention to another important matter. He had taken the
citizenship of Texas immediately upon his arrival (when he also
relinquished his hereditary titles and changed his name), and now he
assisted the swarm of newcomers in becoming citizens of their
adopted land.
Petitions were circulated for the organization of new coun­ties
around the German settlements. In 1846 the state legislature
created Comal County with New Braunfels as county seat. Fred­ericksburg
became the county seat of Gillespie County in 1848. Two
years later Meusebach was elected from these German counties to the
state senate. Until the Civil War, he held a number of state appoint­ments
regulating headrights, surveys, immigration, public education
(the Germans favoring compulsory attendance at nonsectarian
schools), and state affairs.
Even during the early years, when he was impeded on every
hand by the tottering Adelsverein and its awkward plan of coloni­zation,
as well as by the Mexican War, which disrupted domestic
transportation, Meusebach's letters attest to his conviction that "Ger­man
knowledge at the side of American freedom" 27 was creating a
haven in the New World.
By 1850 Fredericksburg was slowly approaching a popu­lation
of 2,000, mostly Germans. Life changed as periods of famine
37
were overcome, and the settlers turned to the pleasant side of life,
such as fandangos. "At times the fandangos ended in quarreling,"
confessed Dr. William Hermes, who treated the victims. "At the be­ginning
of a quarrel, two parties usually were formed: the North
Germans were called Hanoverians, and the Sourh Germans, Nassau­ers,
for the two states from which the majority of the Fredericksburg
colonists emigrated." 2H
According to most people, however, the difficulties oflife in
Fredericksburg were a fair price to pay. Writing from the four-year­old
settlement, Peter Birk enthusiastically advised his friends in the
homeland, "Leave Germany and come here where you can live hap­pily
and contentedly. If you work only half as much as in Germany,
you can live without troubles. In every sense of the word, we are free.
The Indians do us no harm; on the contrary, they bring us meat and
horses to buy. We still live so remote from other people that we are
lonely, bur we have dances, churches, and schools. Buy an old horse
to hitch to your wagon, drive it to Bremen, sell your horse, dis­assemble
your wagon to take to America. For the boat trip take a few
bottles of syrup and vinegar. Mixed with water this is a very re­freshing
drink. Bring your rifle. Do not let anyone persuade you to
go to any other place than Fredericksburg." 29
Ten years after the founding of Fredericksburg, the area did
suffer a drought so severe that it may have caused settlers like Birk to
regret their bright optimism. For a while the outlook was very bleak,
and some seriously considered abandoning the settlement. One colo­nist
with a university background in science discovered a clue in
nature which gave others some hope. Jacob Kuechler, a Fredericks­burg
settler of later significance, noted in the tree rings of an old oak
that short periods of drought alternated in cycles with longer periods
of adequate rainfall. His prediction was right; the lean years were
indeed followed by years of plenty.
When the weather improved, prosperity returned, and the
settlers again set out to make the good life. One young man found
only a few basics lacking. "If you can," he wrote a friend in Germany,
"send some wine and with it a pretty woman, young and beauriful.
She does not have to have much money, only enough for the trip
over here. I also expect that she will be musically inclined and will
bring a piano. I require more in a prospective wife now. Then the
wine could also be used at the wedding. First, however," he added for
safety, "I want a portrait of the one you have chosen for me." 30
After the establishment of Fredericksburg and the conclu­sion
of the Comanche Treaty, the colonization of the Adelsverein
38
Z""!h11URf/ d,r .4n . .-iui!UN,,/f'TI des lk'i"i",~,
Old. Ft . •.
. ~.~ .
.... ;.,
"
~~: ... " .
Colonization
of the Adelsverein
entered its last phase. Meusebach made initial preparations in 1847
for a network of new settlements beyond the Llano River. Three of
these small villages- Leiningen, Meerholz, and Schonburg-were
subsequently abandoned for various reasons. The fourth, Castell,
survived but only with prolonged support and provisions from the
settlers at Fredericksburg. During the first year, while the colony got
under way, tasks were divided for mutual support. "One group of
seven felled trees; another built houses; a third group built fences; the
fourth did ploughing; and two men watched the cattle. One out of
each seven cooked for the group. Each Sunday morning an assembly
took place for discussion of alternating tasks amongst the groups." 31
Yet, despite such careful regimentation of manpower, Castell never
grew to any extent. By 1850 the village had declined to only seven
families and five bachelors for a total population of 32.
Bettina, unique among these Llano settlements, was named
for Bettina von Arnim. This visionary undertaking began when
Prince Solms addressed members of a fraternity of communistic
39
freethinkers in Germany, telling them "that there was no demand in
the Old Country for all the professional men whom universities were
turning our, and they must find a new and developing country where
their services would be in demand." 32
Known as "the Forty" from the size of their membership, the
fraternity had chapters at Darmstadt, Giessen, and Heidelberg.
In Texas the members hoped to realize their dream of a com­munistic
utopia. The students "had no regular scheme of govern­ment,"
so far as Louis Reinhardt, one member, recalled. "In fact,
being communistic, the association would not brook the tyranny of a
ruler." Instead there were guiding spirits by common consent, he
continued. "Being the youngest of the company- I was thirteen­I
was, of course, rarely consulted." 33
No doubt remained after Prince Solms's meeting with them
that the place to seek their ideal community was Texas-"a land of
milk and honey, of perennial flowers, of crystal streams, rich and
fruitful beyond measure, where roamed myriads of deer and buffalo
while the primeval forests abounded in wild fowl of every kind."
For all their youthful dreams of starting a communistic city,
the Forty did not have at their command all the practical skills
needed to clear virgin land for settlement. Their training was, none­theless,
quite diversified: two physicians, one engineer, two archi­tects,
seven lawyers, five foresters, two mechanics, two carpenters,
one burcher, one blacksmith, one lieutenant of artillery, one ship car­penter,
one brewer, one miller, one hosteler, one theologian, one
maker of musical instruments, an agriculturist, and a botanist. Few
spoke English, and only a few had ever earned their own living.
Their lack of frontier experience left them little chance of
success in Texas. In less than a year, the Bettina experiment "went to
pieces like a bubble." Some of the members spent their days hunting
in the river bottom, and others did nothing but engage in philo­sophical
debates, while the rest quibbled about work details. "Most
of the professional men wanted to do the directing and ordering,"
recalled the 13-year-old botanist Reinhardt, "while the mechanics
and laborers were to carry out their plans. Of course, the latter failed
to see the justice of their ruling, so no one did anything." The re­maining
members of the Forty scattered to San Antonio, New
Braunfels, and Austin, where they eventually settled back into the
occupations for which they had been trained.
With the decline of Bettina, the work of the Adelsverein also
ground to a halt. The organization was bankrupt, and also, after the
annexation of Texas, most of the rich German nobles had lost
40
interest in their grandiose project of creating a model German state
in the New World.
German Setdements between 1848 and 1860
The demise of the Adelsverein in no way slowed down Ger­man
immigration to Texas; rather, the movement continued to gain
impetus with each passing year, and only the Civil War brought it to
a momentary standstill. During this period the immigrants concen­trated
in two regions of the state. Apart from many who remained in
major cities-San Antonio, Austin, Galveston, and Houston-be­tween
1848 and 1860 most of the Germans settled in the Hill Coun­try
or near the older German settlements in the Brazos and Colorado
valleys. The counties which received the majority of these later arriv­als
were Comal, Gillespie, Kendall, and Kerr in the west, and Fayette
and Lee in the east.
The Western Counties
The western region, which became Kendall and Kerr Coun­ties,
was a beautifully rolling woodland with limestone outcrop­pings.
The earliest settlement here was a "Latin Colony" called Sister­dale.
Its existence actually dated from 1847 when Nikolas Zink, an
eccentric Bavarian engineer who had reputedly built roads for the
Greeks during their revolution, settled in the valley of the Sister
Creeks, near their confluence with the Guadalupe River. He was
followed by Ottomar von Behr, son of the prime minister of Anhalt­Kothen
and an acquaintance of Bettina von Arnim and the scientist
Alexander von Humboldt. Next came Julius Dresel, son of a wine
exporter and a member of a prominent family in the German free­dom
movement. T hen arrived the family of Dr. Ernst Kapp, the
geography professor, who tested his theories of environment and
technology on the frontier. His nephew Friedrich Kapp joined him
in Texas before the younger Kapp became prominent in the national
Republican Party during Lincoln's campaign and administration.
The names of those who followed the early Forty-Eighters
sound like a Who's Who in German education and popular politics.
Duke Paul of Wlirttemberg found Sisterdale a quiet stopping place
on his incessant journeys of exploration, which he undertook, some
said, to avoid his nagging wife. Frederick Law Olmsted visited the
settlement and marveled at a level of culture and sophistication such
as he had not found elsewhere in the South.
41
Nikolas Zink's cabin at Sisterdale: the start of a Latin Colony
Their rude cabins, Olmsted noted, were stocked with fine
paintings, books, and musical instruments. They conducted weekly
meetings in Latin, mystifYing their neighbors and creating the name
"Latin Colonies" for the small settlement areas. Many of these immi­grants
found themselves unsuited to farm life in an austere environ­ment
and made their way to San Antonio and other towns. Sisterdale
dwindled to a quiet country crossroads.
In 1852 three families departed from New Braunfels and
traveled up the Guadalupe River into the backwoods of the Hill
Country. This farming settlement on Cypress Creek above its con­fluence
with the Guadalupe grew quickly, and in 1854 a young Ger­man
developer named Ernst Hermann Altgelt laid out the town of
Comfort there. The availability of farmland in the valleys and of
ranchland in the hills, with abundant lumber and waterpower, made
the transition from farming to ranching irresistibly appealing. Here
also a sawmill was built, and lumbering soon became a vital part of
thelocaleconom~
42
As intellectuals and freethinkers gravitated toward the area
around Comfort, the settlement grew to become another of the
state's predominantly German towns. Emma Murck Altgelt, wife of
Ernst, wrote in her colorful autobiography that "a kind of local gov­ernment
was slowly developed in Comfort. The citizens elected from
their own a justice of the peace, a policeman, and other officials.
When the children had grown to school age, it was decided to build
a schoolhouse. One citizen donated the site. Others cut down oak
trees, which others in turn hauled to the site. Beautiful cypress trees
supplied the shingles for the roof A blockhouse was soon finished. A
teacher was found too. The little barefoot Comforters did not get too
learned, but they grew up to be strong, healthy, and full of life,
skilled in work about the house and the field, full of courage and love
for riding and hunting, self-reliant with good practical sense, lords of
creation clothed in skimpy garments." 34
The Eastern Counties
While Sisterdale and Comfort were being settled in the
western region of the German belt, many new communities were
growing up in the eastern counties as well. This phase of German
immigration into Fayette and Lee Counties coincided with the
arrival in Texas of several ethnic minorities from German-speaking
43
Theodore Wiedenfeld, founder
of the Cypress Creek Settlement,
was a Freemason and community
leader. The pattern in which
settlers followed the Wiedenfelds to
the valley tells an interesting story
of interrelationships among the
German Texans. Here again, ties
of kinship and family letters
reinforced the dominant role
of "trailblazer" personalities.
This stone church at
Honey Creek, dedicated in
1912, was built to replace
earlier log and rock
churches built by some of
the stalwart pioneers who
settled in western Comal
County and eastern
Kendall County in the
1850's. The Germanform
communities of Rebecca
Creek, Spring Branch,
Anhalt, Honey Creek, and
Bergheim developed as
people moved away from
New Braunfels.
Europe. These were the Czechs, Wends, and Poles. While these other
groups usually established their own separate settlements, they some­times
mingled with their German neighbors so that today the ethnic
distinctions seem somewhat blurred.
This part of the state had been settled by Anglo-Americans a
generation before the first German communities were organized.
Fayetteville, for example, in eastern Fayette County, had been found­ed
about 1822 by several families from Austin's original colony. As
German farmers moved into this fertile area, they tended to buy up
the land which had been settled by the earlier Americans, while the
Anglos, in turn, moved on. In this manner Fayetteville evolved into
an Anglo-American and German community. Later, when the
Czechs, or Bohemians, began to arrive, they too bought land from
the original Anglo-American farmers, so, by the outbreak of the Civil
War, Fayetteville had only a small Anglo-American element. Round
Top, La Grange, and Giddings underwent similar transitions. The
population of Fayette County consequently shifted from Anglo­American
to German and Czech, while the population of Lee Coun­ty
went from Anglo-American to German and Wendish (a German­icized
Slavic nationality from Lusatia, an eastern European province
governed by Prussia at the time the Wends left).
44
Since the area had been settled longer, life for European
colonists throughout the eastern counties of Texas was never as diffi­cult
nor as dangerous as the region west of New Braunfels. As a
result, the Germans in the east soon prospered. Furthermore, their
commercial activities encouraged them to mix much more freely
with non-German elements of the population than the Germans in
the western counties did at first. Thus life in Victoria, DeWitt, Lava­ca,
Colorado, Austin, Fayette, Washington, and Lee Counties ac­quired
a unique charm with the blending of rural traditions from the
Old South and those of the European homeland.
Patterns of German Settlement after the Civil War
The federal blockade of Confederate ports during the Civil
War effectively halted immigration into Texas. After the Civil War,
however, immigration entered a new phase as increasing numbers of
Germans filtered into the state. While the German belt extending
across Central Texas absorbed most of these later immigrants, a sig­nificant
number of them settled in small German folk-islands scat­tered
across wide areas of South, North Central, and Northwest
Texas. The German-speaking population of the state's developing
cities-Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas-also increased
considerably during the final decades of large-scale German immi­gration
to Texas.
Many of the Germans who settled in the cities during the
1860's, 1870's, and 1880's were skilled artisans and craftsmen with
no farming experience in Europe; large numbers of German intel-
Round Top in Fayette County was originaLly an AngLo-American settLement. As the
first settlers moved out, German formers came and stayed.
45
lectuals and proletarian freedom-fighters also settled in the urban
areas. The impact of all these people on the growing cities of Texas
was, in some cases, quite considerable. The 1850 census of the fledg­ling
city of Houston showed a German-speaking element comprising
45 percent of the inhabitants. By the end of Reconstruction, the
Germans no longer accounted for such a large part of the city's popu­lation,
but they had become thoroughly established in mercantile
enterprises and contributed much to local economic growth. Ger­mans
were active in Houston municipal politics; in cultural, reli­gious,
and Volksfest celebrations; in fraternal and fire-fighting or­ganizations;
and, significantly, in the city's wholesale liquor and
saloon trade. 35
Even in established centers like Galveston and San Antonio,
as well as in other developing cities such as Austin and Dallas, the
German population exerted an influence on local life far greater than
its percentage of the urban population would suggest. Especially
after the Civil War, their influence increased in local and state poli­tics.
During Reconstruction many of the state's leading German
families won general acceptance into the political and social elite of
Texas. Many of them had been Unionists, and, of course, they got
the government jobs.
A large part of the German influx in the 1870's and there­after
came from other states in the Union. For example, in 1873 a
group of Hessian artisans moved from New Orleans to a small settle­ment
at Garland on Duck Creek, 13 miles north of Dallas, and with­in
a year had established their own church with a missionary pastor
from Missouri. The 1880's showed a marked movement of Germans
from established communities of the central German belt of Texas
into other less populous areas.
The advent of windmills in Texas made arid regions of the
state feasible for agriculture, and German farmers started to settle the
divides and plains of West Texas, making the transition from farming
to ranching. The railroad companies often placed land on the market
and offered free transportation as an inducement to settlers. In this
fashion the community of Germania came into being in 1880 in
Midland County. Today, however, the town has dwindled to a
population of less than 30 and is known as "Paul" as a result of World
War I hostility toward German Texans.
In 1889 one of the last significant colonization plans for
settling Germans in Texas got under way in North Texas. It, too, was
supported by railroad development. The first settlement created by
this colonization plan was Muenster, located about 14 miles west of
46
Gainesville on the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad in present
Cooke County. Muenster was established by the Flusche brothers, a
group of enterprising young men from Westphalia. The Flusches
were not beginners in this type of work; they had already started
three successful colonies of German Catholics in Iowa and Kansas.
The brothers had initially intended to establish their fourth
colony in Oklahoma, but they were told that the land they wanted
had been reserved for French settlers. At that point they happened
upon a letter written by a boyhood friend from Westphalia in the
German Catholic newspaper Amerika, which was printed in St.
Louis. This letter addressed the advantages of German settlement in
North Texas. The brothers set out immediately for this region, where
they found the perfect combination of conditions: a mild climate, a
railroad which was eager to open land for settlement along a new
line, and some ranchers who were equally eager to sell out for cash.
The town of Muenster thrived with the establishment of a bank, a
gin, a cheese plant, a flour mill, an oil refinery, and a newspaper. Two
years later, in 1891, the Flusches founded their fifth German Catho­lic
colony at Lindsay, a few miles east of Muenster in Cooke County.
Later that same year, the last movement to settle Catholics
of German extraction in Texas began in St. Louis. This plan led to
47
Charles Philipp Axe (1831-
1898) came to Louisiana about
1847. Although he was a tailor,
he opened a wheelwright and
blacksmith shop in New
Orleans. Sixteen years later he
led a group of relatives by boat
to Galveston; from there they
traveled to Duck Creek (now
Garland) near Dallas. He and
his brother Ludwig established
the first German churches in
Garland and Dallas.
August, Emil, and Anton Flusche
the establishment of Windthorst in Archer County under the reli­gious
leadership of Father Joseph Reisdorff, another indefatigable
colonizer in North Texas, who later assisted with the founding of
Rhineland (Knox County) in 1895, Nazareth (Castro County) in
1902, Umbarger (Randall County) in 1909, and Slaton (Lubbock
County) in 1911.
Apart from a scheme spearheaded by a minister from Wis­consin
to create a health resort and gardening center at Deutschburg
near Matagorda Bay, three other interesting episodes remain in the
history of German colonization in Texas before World War 1.
One of these began halfway around the world in the farm­ing
village of Rorbach near the Black Sea. This part of the Ukraine,
ruled by Imperial Russia, had been a vast domain with sparsely pop­ulated
regions in 1762 when the German-born Czarina Catherine II
launched her scheme to transplant German-speaking artisans and
peasants into the Volga River Valley and the underdeveloped region
of the Ukraine around the Black Sea. For a hundred years, these Ger­man
Russians had lived a secluded but fairly good life in the Ukraine,
where they were exempted by special imperial decrees from military
service and regular taxation. As further inducement the Empress
Catherine had even guaranteed full religious freedom, autonomy in
local government, specified amounts of free land, and free transpor­tation
from Germany to Russia. Many of these privileges were with­drawn
under later emperors, however, beginning in 1860, thus ini-
48
tiating a mass exodus of Russian Germans and Jews. In 1871 the
exemption from compulsory military service was withdrawn, and in
1890 Russian became a required subject in the German schools.
Together with several bad crop failures, these conditions precipitated
a severe unrest among these Russian Germans and Russian Jews. In
large numbers the Germans departed Russia for new homes in the
Midwest, California, the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Texas. In
the early 1890's, a group of Black Sea German families bearing the
names of Bachmann, Feiock, Fuhrmann, Graf, Hoeffner, Kafer,
Moser, Obermeier, Oster, Ridinger, and Wust bought land at Hurn­ville,
ten miles north of Henrietta in Clay County. This group was
followed by a party of Volga Germans who settled in Lipscomb
County in the Panhandle.
Another episode in the history of German colonization in
Texas involved the settlement of German Lutherans in southwestern
Haskell and eastern Stonewall Counties where the towns of Bran­denburg
(renamed "Old Glory" during World War I) and Sagerton
developed in 1903 and 1905.
Still another episode of settlement began in 1905 when a
congregation of German-speaking Mennonites was organized in
Tuleta in Bee County. The Mennonites, part of a predominantly
Swiss-German sect of 16th century Anabaptist origin, had a long
history of persecution, being driven from country to country in
search of religious and military freedom. Another Mennonite group
from Ohio and Kansas, numbering over a hundred persons, settled
temporarily in Dimmit County between 1911 and 1914. The next
year a still larger body established a colony near Littlefield in Lamb
County, northwest of Lubbock. In the 1930's and 1940's, the Men­nonites
increased their activities in South Texas, where they had es­tablished
ten missions and congregations by 1957.
From Friedrich Ernst's exultant letter in 1832 to the arrival
of the first Adelsverein ships in 1844, and from the collapse of
Bettina in 1848 to the coming of the Russian Germans in the 1890's
and the Mennonites in the 20th century, the immigrant story is a
saga of common people with uncommon dreams.
The loss of ideals and the rebirth of hope were prevailing
experiences of 19th century German colonists in Texas. Their depar­ture
from the Old World and their part in a struggle to push forward
the edge of civilization is a story of broken homes, lost friends, and
separation from known surroundings. For some it began as a tale of
tragedy. "This was the first grave in Texas of a dearly beloved one for
whom we mourned," wrote Ottilie Fuchs Goeth after her sister's
49
death. "So soon then, we were bound to this country in such a way
that, as Wilhelm von Humboldt put it, we associated home with two
worlds." 36
But they won out and made for themselves a new world in
their own image. With the pride of youth, they boasted of young
America. "There is not a potentate on earth who could conquer these
United States! The immigrants have accepted the spirit of the Ameri­cans.
The best thing about Americans," Carl Hilmar Guenther pro­claimed,
"is that they can strut before the whole world, for the coun­try
itself can supply everything it needs." 37
They brought their past with them. They trusted that in
their new world "everything would take root" and grow bigger and
better than before. They were seekers pursuing a dream.
50
ERNST KAPP
The Desire to Be Free
One visitor to Professor Ernst Kapp's home on the fron­tier
recalled that "within his book-covered walls he used to
serve his guests with self-grown wine and home-grown
tobacco," while he philosophized about "the advantages oflife in the
country."
The professor was recognized by European scholars for two
works: a comparative cultural geography and a philosophy of tools
and technology. In these works Kapp foresaw, a century ahead of his
time, that mankind's development was shaped more by environment
than by history. The future as Kapp saw it was threatened by pollu­tion
and dehumanization in man's search for better machines to do
his work.
After a prison sentence in Germany resulting from his advo­cating
a more liberal government, Ernst Kapp took his family to
Texas, where they experimented with what he theorized was the
"perfect" way of life. The "free earth" of Texas overwhelmed the
professor's brave wife as the family journeyed inland; writing home,
she described a strange, psychic landscape in which fear of the un­known
mingled with the temptation to see what lay ahead.
"Everybody tries to stop you by painting the next succeeding region
51
as horrifYing, but up to now, as far as we have come, the land has
become more and more beautiful. I find that one is overcome with
an amazing change; the farther one comes inland, the more civili­zation
ceases."
While the professor cleared the farm, wrote, and experi­mented
with natural cures for physical illnesses, his wife told of the
change which had come over him. "How contented, healthy, and
happy Ernst here is. Daily he extols how fortunate it is for him that
he came away from tired old Europe."
The whole family, in Ida Kapp's words, seemed transformed
by the new surroundings and infected with energy and purpose. "If
someone portrayed life the way we here are living it-we sleep with a
cover and a pillow on the floor of a semi furnished room, do our
cooking with one pot, one cauldron, and one cornbread pan for
which we have to build a fire out in the yard, etc. Eating and drink­ing
utensils consist of a few tin plates and tin cups; we have rented an
ordinary kitchen table. For chairs we use baskets and trunks. Yes,
would someone have portrayed it to me, I would have laughed. And
yet I don't know how it happens, but I never before have been more
content and in better health. I now have the courage to tackle any
and all things and I know now that everything will take root." 38
52
John Dum George W. Smyth
GERMAN TRAILBLAZERS
The Durst Brothers and George Washington Smyth
fie the early 1800's, three brothers, Joseph, John, and Jacob
Durst, entered Texas from Natchitoches, Louisiana. Born of
German immigrant parents in Spanish Missouri, each of
the three left a sharp imprint on Texas. Joseph, the oldest, was alcalde
(mayor) of Nacogdoches in 1826. He was active in the Texas Revo­lution
and later in Indian affairs of the Texas Republic until his death
in 1843.
John Durst became the protege and heir of wealthy Samuel
Davenport, merchant and landowner at Nacogdoches. When Dav­enport
died, leaving Durst his Texas properties, the young man
became one of Texas's wealthiest citizens. He operated from Dav­enport's
headquarters in the Old Stone Fort at Nacogdoches. Three
years later he was elected to the Coahuila yTejas legislature. At Mon­clova
(the provincial capital), he was warned of Santa Anna's plans to
invade Texas and, with an incredible horseback ride, reached home
with the report in twelve and a half days. During the revolution this
Texas "Paul Revere" commanded troops in East Texas.
53
The third brother, Jacob Darst, retained the original spelling
of the family name. He was living at Gonzales at the outset of the
Texas Revolution. When Mexican troops came there to demand the
return of a cannon, the settlers buried it; later Jacob and two others
dug it up for use against the Mexican army. On March 1, 1836, Jacob
Darst joined 32 men from Gonzales who went to the relief of the
Alamo. He was killed in the fortress six days later.
George Washington Smyth, son of a German millwright,
came to Texas from Tennessee early in 1830. He settled at Nacog­doches,
taught school, became a surveyor, and attained wide influ­ence
as a public figure. He represented his district at the Convention
of 1836, signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, then joined
his family in the Runaway Scrape. He served in the congress of the
Texas Republic, as commissioner of the General Land Office, and as
a member of the United States Congress. He died while serving as a
delegate to the state's Constitutional Convention of 1866 after the
Civil War.
54
TEXAS AND THE REVOLUTION
German Texians in War
One dramatic personal account of the Texas Revolution was
published, not in Texas nor in the United States, as one
would expect, but in Germany. Texas und seine Revolution
was the work of Hermann Ehrenberg, a 17-year-old adventurer
who landed in Texas in time to fight in San Antonio at the Siege
of Bexar late in 1835. Early the next year, he and six German
friends were with Fannin's ill-fated army at Goliad, when the en­tire
command was captured and condemned to death. Three of
the Germans, including Ehrenberg, were spared from the massa­cre
and eventually released by the Mexicans. Ehrenberg returned
to Germany six years later and became a teacher of English at the
University of Halle, where he edited a journal of his experiences
in the Texas Revolution and completed an account of the found­ing
of the Lone Star Republic.
A yearning for the Wild West brought Ehrenberg back to the
United States in later years. He settled this time in Arizona, where he
found employment as a surveyor, map maker, road builder, and min­ing
engineer. Mystery clouds his end. A story made its way back to
his friends that he was attacked by Indians at an isolated stage stop
;tt~a~
ullb frint,
NeUO(lltfon
Jj .. mann G:"ronb •• g,
5iitBn" ber 9I r"lln 'fllif.
;tI<tto1flt.!blrll. "hw,tlidjblt3ril,
Unb n'~.' l"~r~ bhil}t QilS tim lNllinm.
15 dj [II It.
e e iV , i g:
£) t t 0 ml I 9 Q n b.
1 8 ~ a.
55
east of present-day Palm Springs, California, but strong suspicion
persists that he was slain by the stationmaster for the large sum of
money he carried. Ehrenberg was buried at the scene by his friend
Mike Goldwater, a noted Arizona pioneer who subsequently named
the town of Ehrenberg for him.
When the call went out in the fall of 1835 for Americans to
aid in the revolt against Mexico, one young German immigrant in
Kentucky was quick to enlist as a drummer in a volunteer company.
Immanuel Frederick Gibenrath quickened the steps of these troops
on the long trail to Texas, but, in less than six months, Gibenrath had
fallen in the bloody massacre at Goliad. Quite some time later, his
young widow and two daughters in Germany, awaiting word to come
to America, finally learned of the death of the German drummer.
Another German who died in action in the fight for Texas
independence was Gustav Bunsen. This was apparently the only time
that Bunsen was on a winning side. A schoolteacher in Frankfurt and
cousin of the inventor of the Bunsen burner, Gustav had taken part
in the abortive Frankfurt Putsch, or coup, of 1833 and fled to the
United States in the company of close associates. He belonged to a
group called the Dreissiger because they were political refugees of the
1830's. With a couple of friends, Bunsen insisted on coming to Texas,
despite warnings that the disease-ridden land was uninhabitable,
filled with wild beasts and savage natives.
At least four other Germans fought with General Houston at
San Jacinto. The best known of this group was Robert Kleberg,
founder of Cat Spring. With him at San Jacinto were John Karner,
Christian Wertzner, and Frederick Lemsky, who, tradition says,
played the fife to signal the advance.
56
A LETTER TO FIRE THE IMAGINATION
From the Father of German Immigration to Texas
Settlement on Mill Creek, in Austin's Colony,
State of Texas, Republic of Mexico,
February 1, 1832.
In February of the previous year, we embarked on a brig to
New Orleans. It was still winter on our departure from New York,
then mild spring breezes blew upon us four days after our departure.
Between Cuba and Florida, we had later real summer, and the whole
sea voyage of a thousand miles over that part of the ocean, through
the Bahama Islands, into the Gulf of Mexico, up to the mouth of the
Mississippi, we lay constantly against the wind and came somewhat
back. On the Mississippi up to New Orleans, a hundred and twenty
miles (five make a German mile), we received favorable news of
Austin's colony in Texas; we embarked again in the schooner of
thirty-seven tons and landed after an eight-day voyage at Harris­burgh
in this colony.
Each immigrant who wishes to engage in farming receives a
league of land; a single person, one-quarter of a league. A league of
land contains four thousand four hundred and forty acres of land,
mountain and valley, woods and meadows, cut through by brooks.
The ground is hilly and alternates with forest and natural
grass plains. Various kinds of trees. Climate like that of Sicily. The
soil needs no fertilizer. Almost constant east wind. No winter, almost
like March in Germany. Bees, birds, and butterflies the whole winter
through. A cow with a calf costs ten dollars. Planters who have seven
hundred head of cattle are common. Principal products: tobacco,
rice, indigo grow wild; sweet potatoes, melons of an especial good­ness,
watermelons, wheat, rye, vegetables of all kinds; peaches in
great quantity grow wild in the woods, mulberries, many kinds of
walnuts, wild plums, persimmons sweet as honey; wine in great
quantity but not of a particular taste; honey is found chiefly in hol­low
trees. Birds of all kinds, from pelicans to hummingbirds. Wild
prey such as deer, bears, raccoons, wild turkeys, geese, partridges (the
latter as large as domestic fowls) in quantity. Free hunting and
fishing. Wild horses and buffalo in hordes; wolves, but of a feeble
kind; also panthers and leopards, of which there is no danger; rich
game, delicious roasts. Meadows with the most charming flowers.
57
Many snakes, also rattlesnakes; each planter knows safe means
against them.
English the ruling speech. Clothing and shoes very dear.
Each settler builds ... a blockhouse. The more children, the better
for ... field labor. Scarcely three months work a year. No need for
money, free exercise of religion, and the best markets for all products
at the Mexican harbors; up the river there is much silver, but there
are still Indian races there. We men satisfY ourselves with hunting
and horseraces.
On account of the yellow fever, one should arrive some
weeks before the month of July or after the first of October. It is a
good thing if one can speak English; only enough money is needed as
is necessary to purchase a league of land. A father of a family must
remember that he receives on his arrival, through the land granted to
him, a small kingdom which will come to be worth in a short time
from seven to eight hundred [dollars], for which it is often sold here.
The expenses for the land need not be paid immediately. Many raise
the money from their cattle.
Your friend,
Friedrich Ernst
N.B. Passports are not necessary. Sons over seventeen have
like part in the settlement of the land.
58
HOW A BRIDE WAS WON
Caroline Louise Sacks von Roeder, mother of Mrs. Robert
Justus Kleberg, gave the following account of the ram­bunctious
life and the "bittersweet wedding of our wild son
Sigismund, whose duel with the Prince of Prussia brought us all to
Texas."
''About a dozen young men met at the house of Benjamin
Buckingham on the Brazos. This young Kentuckian had recently
brought his young bride to his plantation, and they were all cele­brating.
The men drifted into cards. Soon the losers dropped out.
Sigismund was most favored, Buckingham was losing-the game
narrowed to these two. When Buckingham's cash was gone, he put
up his bills of sale for his mules, workhorses, yokes of oxen. Then,
one by one, Buckingham's slaves carne into the game. Sigismund
raked in the bills of sale.
"With his personal property gone, Buckingham sent for the
title papers to the various plots on his plantation. Buckingham lost.
Then he looked around the room-his bride entered. He then drew
his marriage certificate from his pocket, 'We'll play for that!' In­stantly
Sigismund pushed his winnings into the middle of the table.
'Certainly we will, but not without the consent of the lady.' She
smiled; they played, Buckingham lost. As Sigismund rose to consoli­date
the marriage certificate with his other winnings, Buckingham
fired but missed, and as he reached for another pistol, Sigismund
flashed his sword (the same that had killed the Prince of Prussia) and
ran him through. The Coroner found self-defense. In a loud, ringing
voice, the same official was heard to say, 'Will you, Barbara Bucking­ham,
take this man . .. ?'
"Dear sister: Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was
ever woman in this manner won?
"Hurry, hurry and join us. Texas is truly the land of freedom
and romance."
From Dorothy E. Justman,
German Colonists and Their Descendants in Houston
59
FERDINAND LINDH EIMER
Father of Botany in Texas
'Frdinand Lindheimer (1801-1879) from Frankfurt was cer­tainly
one of the most diversified of German settlers in Texas.
Lindheimer, son of a wealthy merchant and a relative of
Goethe, had been a close friend of the Bunsens and had worked as a
botany teacher at the Bunsen Institute, which the authorities sus­pected
was training German revolutionaries. Immediately after the
failure of the Frankfurt Putsch, he escaped to the United States and
settled in the "Latin" village of Belleville, Illinois, across the Missis­sippi
River from St. Louis. From there, in 1834, the adventurous
Lindheimer flatboated with five friends down the river to New
Orleans, where they intended to provision themselves for an expe­dition
into Texas. The promise, however, of taking part in a Mexican
uprising evidently lured three of them to Veracruz. For the next 16
months, Lindheimer was variously employed in Mexico as distiller
on a coffee plantation and as overseer on a banana and pineapple
plantation. He still found time, though, to make an extensive col­lection
of insects and plants.
In the last months of 1835, Lindheimer was caught up in
the Texas Revolution. Because of his hatred for political oppression,
he supposedly declined a commission in the army of Santa Anna and
started for Texas: "I recognized that this was the moment to carry out
my original plan of going to Texas before the decisive battle."
Shipwrecked near Mobile, Lindheimer joined Houston's army one
day after the Battle of San Jacinto.
Lindheimer remained in Texas as a botanical collector until
1839, when he returned to St. Louis to work out an arrangement
with Dr. Asa Gray of Harvard University for extensive botanical
investigation in Texas. Back in Texas in 1843, Lindheimer bought a
two-wheeled, horse-drawn cart and a supply of pressing paper, flour,
coffee, and salt, and set out with two dogs. The trips often lasted as
long as a month as Lindheimer explored the Brazos, Colorado, and
Guadalupe River valleys. On one of these trips, he made the
acquaintance of Reverend Louis Cachand Ervendberg, whom Prince
Solms had invited to become pastor of the Adelsverein colony, and
through this association Lindheimer became the prince's guide into
the wilderness.
His colleague, the paleontologist-geologist Roemer, leaves
this sketch of Lindheimer: ''At the end of the town, some distance
from the last house, half hidden beneath a group of elm and oak
60
Texas Prickly-pear
Ol'llnfilJ lincl1lCimcri
61
Lindheimer had organized
the plants of Texas into a
system by 1851. About 20
species of plants and one
genus of Texas wildflowers
honor his name today and
recall his contributions to
American science. Pictured
is the Texas prickly pear, or
Opuntia lindheimeri.
Lindheimer's log cabin in New Braunfels
trees, stood a hut or little house close to the banks of the Comal. It
furnished an idyllic picture with its enclosed garden and general
arrangement and position. When I neared this simple, rustic home, I
spied a man in front of the entrance busily engaged in splitting
wood. Apparently he was used to this kind of work. He wore a blue
jacket, open at the front, yellow trousers, and the coarse shoes
customarily worn by farmers in the vicinity. It was the botanist, Mr.
Ferdinand Lindheimer. He acquired for himself an enduring repu­tation
through his many years of assiduous collecting of plants and
through his study of the botany of Texas, which up to this time was
almost unknown." By 1851 Lindheimer had organized the plants of
Texas into a system. About 20 species of plants and one genus of
Texas wildflowers honor his name today and recall his contributions
to American science.
During the Civil War, Lindheimer took a moderate political
position. As editor of the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, which he founded
in 1852, Lindheimer attacked German unionism because he clearly
saw that it would lead to trouble between German colonists and
Anglo-American settlers. Furthermore, he counseled his native
countrymen to fall in step with American life but exhorted them to
keep their language and culture on the edge of a savage wilderness.
Lindheimer's paper influenced German settlers for nearly a quarter
of a century. After Lindheimer retired, the paper continued German
publication until 1957.
'>
Ferdinand Lindheimer
62
TWO V1EWS OF IMMIGRATION. Which one was true?
Were they both accurate? Or did it depend on each person's outlook?
In the end, wasn't one person's hell another's paradise?
Oh, you poor Germans! my dear countrymen! if you in your old
homeland only knew what is awaiting you in Texas under the
auspices and guidance of the Society, you would desist with a sense of
horror and trembling from your decision to emigrate to Texas, and
you would remain in your dear fatherland!
Carl Blumberg
We are now quite content and happy. When one gets adjusted, that
is, has his house finished and field fenced, it is a better living here
than that of a farmer in Europe. I have no desire ever to go back.
Whoever wants to see must come here; I do not believe that he will
regret it.
Hubert Lux
Whosoever wants to come would do well to bring iron, copper, and
tin house and kitchen utensils, spade and hoes, a pan for cleaning
fruits, and a plow (since the domestic plows are not as good as the
German plows). Bring a pair of wheels for a cart and also a grind­stone.
Bring garden seeds and summer wheat. Whosoever comes
must never allow himself to be detained on the coast by Americans
nor by Germans who being too lazy to work have fallen victims to
drunkenness or lead some other dissolute life. But come up to here
... where fever and other sicknesses never occur.
Hubert Lux
63
DR. FERDINAND ROEMER
One of the most valuable surveys of Texas flora, fauna, and ge­ology
was published in Germany in 1849. The book Texas
by Ferdinand Roemer has since been translated and repub­lished
several times. This young German paleontologist was sent by
the Berlin Academy of Science to make a geological survey of Texas,
in particular the area within the Adelsverein grant. Roemer was a
keen observer and a diligent worker. His letter of introduction from
Alexander von Humboldt read, "Dr. Roemer, like a book, needs but
to be opened to yield good answers to all questions." In gathering his
scientific specimens, he was greatly aided by the children of the Ger­man
settlements, who regarded him as their friend. After more than a
year of exploration, he returned to Germany, where he produced a
book bearing the simple title Texas. This volume is important not
only for its wealth of information about the natural setting, but also
for its penetrating insights into the society of the times and the op­portunities
afforded by this new land.
"I have noticed irregularity and romanticism in regard to the
clothing of the young German colonists recently come to Texas. It
64
seems as if they wanted to compensate themselves ... for the re­straint
which the manners and customs of the homeland had im­posed
upon them. The almost total absence of cultured women also
helped to encourage this recklessness in dress.
"The clothing of my companions was a particular object of
attention to me. They could hardly have been more fantastic and
heterogeneous if they had been taken from the wardrobe of a theater.
The component parts were borrowed from the Indian, the Mexican,
the American, and the German costumes, but the greater part was a
production to suit the capricious taste of the individual.
"The colonist who has not farmed in the Old Country must
have an unusual amount of endurance and willpower. I have seen
quite a few German peasants and laborers, who had come here with­out
any funds, come into possession of little farms through their
industry. These supplied them with the necessities of life and even
gave promise of future affluence and comfortable living. On the
other hand, I have hardly seen ten people of the higher class, sup­plied
with moderate funds, who within a year were able to acquire a
house with a fenced-in field and of whom one could hope that they
would be able to sustain t1l€mselves through their own efforts."
£:..
,. '-;. "<; .
~'\"r . '" ~.... iI"':~""'" . ~)~
> ••• ~\ <?l>" rv'~. ,,...,\ ~ ~\\1I"'(" ' 6lt.;~; > (~ ~~':5 r.~ ..\ \.~~ \
~\Il~ ~ ~} fJ ' ~ '''1f' ., ~ ~:~~ ," i:·.I, ~' ',~, . t~'. j,.'\)
., ~U),-", ,~~ j. (~
.,'., Ii >JJ I( "tf 'll''' I . ·~'· .. l .)'J
65
Fossils from Roemer's
Kreidebildungen
von Texas
Roemer's affection for Texas is evidenced in the concluding
lines of his book Texas: "During my stay of more than a year, I had
grown to love the beautiful land of meadows, to which belongs a
great future, It moved me to sorrow that I must say fa rewell. , , , To
me there still remain rich and pleasant memories; and from afar I
shall always follow with lively interest the further development of the
country, May its broad, green prairies become the habitation of a
great and happy people,"
'" - ; ' ~ "',,,, .; ?Prflt,.t: .' " I ''''~''''-:' -. ' ': [i'!'1:. ... " '. I~~~" . , ,:0 " ~ -" I m, ! \I' . I ,'\, ' , ~: Jr , a~tl~it~;,i~ ~~;i\~I~~'f'.-'i.Vf'':-~.I~.':' ,=c: ' j: ' <:"~!'I' "t' '0' :~l" ', II~I: '~ ;~t·JL. 't" 'v ~~. - 'lZ.
',,1"'.); , .... , '''"'''~' .• '; '~',.::: ~,.;..;, .~~ . .r.;': . ,,' " " , - '~ ,' '" 0 , , , " - "
-J!:',' ,~;~, • ~_ ~ ~:, '~';~:i!,~jJ'~~i;~/. :!~;;01f:t ~I~~i~;·.:: i'., ~
/. ...'_ i", ' .' '/"'/1."" J, J c..../ (" -;. 7/, ", ',' I .. .. : ..
The Vereinskirche served triple duty in early Fredericksburg as a house of worship,
school, and fortress, Dr. William Hermes comments: "Before Meusebach made the
treaty with the Comanche Indians at the San Saba, the FredericksbUlg colonists
lilJed in flar of attack by Indians and had organized themselves into a mounted
company and a foot company for the deftllSe of the colony. A shot jom the cannon
was to be a signal for all colonists to assemble armed in the marketplace before the
municipal building, "
66
"Remove not the ancient landmarks which your fathers have set."
(Proverbs 22:28)
~e old Marienkirche at Fredericksburg-
Building the great stone church was a three-year struggle
of major proportions. Begun in 1860 to replace the earlier
Catholic church of 1849, the construction went ahead by fits and
starts. The tasks of quarrying, stonecutting, lime burning, hauling
sand and lumber, measuring and staking off the foundation, mason­ry,
carpentry, and plastering were undertaken by the townspeople.
"Even children helped by carrying water," explained Fredericksburg
historian Ella Gold. "At times work came to a standstill, for field­work
and other jobs had to be done." As the work continued into the
Civil War, "some workmen were obliged to exchange the hammer
and trowel for weapons of war. Building materials and even food
were often in short supply since freighters were in service of the Con­federacy.
Ofttimes a pall of sadness hung over the community be­cause
of Civil War horror and Indian atrocities. Not all who labored
at this church construction lived to see it finished."
67
Sunday House
BUILDING A WORLD
An Essay in Pictures 'ne frontier settlements never became "farm villages" in the
German sense, because farmers lived outside the towns,
which became commercial and social centers for the sur­rounding
rural areas. On the weekends farm families traveled in
wagons and buggies to town for marketing, social gatherings, and
worship. Duting these visits they "camped out" in small weekend
cottages, called Sunday Houses, built for this purpose in town. The
stylized construction of these dwellings, found predominantly in
Fredericksburg, consisted of three rooms on the ground floor, a front
porch, and a wooden outside stairway leading on one side to an attic,
where the children slept in a bedroom under the rafters.
68
Comfort
The first German settlers we saw we knew at once. They lived in little
cabins and had enclosures of ten acres of land about them. The cabins
were simple, but there were many little conveniences .. . and a care to
secure comfort in small ways.
Frederick Law Olmsted
Fredericksburg has really progressed in the last few years, and only
strong, well-built stone houses are built now.
Franz Kettner, 1856
69
""" . ';~;~ ~ _ ._-- -'---
Fredericksburg
Gate of the home of cabinetmaker
Heinrich Scholl, New Braunfels
The bandstand on the Fredericksburg town square
72
Round Top
I never in my life, except perhaps in awakening from a dream, met
with such a sudden and complete transfer of associations. Instead of
loose-boarded or hewn-log walls with crevices stuffed with rags or
daubed with mortar, which we have been accustomed to see during
the last month, or staving in a door, where we have found any to
open; instead, even, of four bare, cheerless sides of whitewashed plas­ter,
which we have found twice or thrice only in a more aristocratic
American residence, we were-in short, we were in Germany.
Frederick Law Olmsted
73
c H A p T E R T H R E E
"J have seen a rich, beautiful world filled with resources, full of
challenges for the industrious. "
~e immigrants' eyes beheld a world vastly different from
anything they had ever known before-a raw, uncivilized,
untamed wilderness. Beneath its rough surface, however, they
guessed that the land could produce great riches which would secure
their future in the New World. What they suspected was indeed true,
but only through great perseverance and industry did the land release
its abundance.
With considerable wisdom and insight, Friedrich Wilhelm
von Wrede wrote in 1844, "My observations do not show any strolls
along rosy pathways. I have not seen any fried pigeons fly into anyone's
mouth. However, I have seen a rich, beautiful world filled with re­sources,
full of challenges for the industrious, with abundant and as­sured
awards as far as this world can ever guarantee them." 39
Although the American way of life, like the geography and
climate, was strange to the German immigrants, they tried to some
extent to fit into the American mold, but the German newcomers
were generally better educated and more widely read than their
American counterparts; they were tradition-bound and preferred their
old ways to the new. To them, Americans were friendly, but also
rambunctious and often vulgar. The Germans tended therefore to
remain silent and apart from their new countrymen, without meaning
to give offense, while, among their own people, they were fun-loving
and outgoing.
75
At times, as the isolation seemed to increase, the Germans
fell back on their old customs as a means of security against the lone­liness
of exile and became more "German" even than they had been
in their homeland. This natural reaction was sometimes misinterpreted
by the Anglo-Americans as aloofness, a deliberate attempt to shun
American company.
One German writer understood the problems which arose
on both sides. "The inhabitants intermingle little with Americans,"
she noted. "The Germans are not as enterprising as the latter, but they
are steady and industrious." 40
Not all German immigrants, however, found it so difficult to
adjust to American culture. For those who came early or who settled
in areas where few other Germans lived, the process of assimilation
was easier; they necessarily lived more closely with Americans and had
to change.
George B. Erath was one such individual who welcomed the
new way of life with no reservations. "It was a bold dream, that of
going to America from Austria. For Austria did not encourage emi­gration;
she barely permitted it. Americans have been surprised at my
association here with Americans alone, and regarding the German not
as a fellow-countryman, but simply as another citizen of the United
States or of Texas; but the fact is that I left the whole of that land,
Germany and Austria, deeming that lowed no allegiance to either." 41
For the majority of the Germans who, unlike Erath, settled
in predominantly German Central Texas, it was the land-that raw
wilderness-which created a bond with the American frontiersmen.
Together they were undertaking the same bold mission-to create an
"agrarian utopia of hardy and virtuous yeomen." 42 Strengthened later
by business ties as the frontier developed into a modern state, this
goal gave the immigrants and the Anglo-Americans a common pur­pose.
On three occasions-the Civil War, World War I, and World
War II-the bond was seriously tested, but it held and gave evidence
of the colonists' social and economic assimilation.
The first obstacle to be overcome on the frontier was the ever­present
danger ofIndian attack. For generations during the westward
movement, the Anglo-Americans had been engaged in a fierce struggle
with the natives of the North American wilderness. Numerically out­numbered
and otherwise vulnerable because they lacked frontier ex­perience,
the German Texans attempted a new solution to the old
problem, when John o. Meusebach's peace mission secured a treaty
of friendship with the Comanche chiefs in 1847. The treaty was es­sential
to the success of German colonization plans because it afforded
76
August Faltin, banker
and merchant, with his
wife, Clara von Below
The Indian Treaty of 1847
the long-range stability required for the establishment of towns, busi­nesses
, and industry. In a direct way, it was effective in attracting in­vestment
capital and expertise to the frontier.
77
A young Prussian banker named August Faltin had far­reaching
prospects in mind when he came to the Hill Country with
his young wife, and the money he brought with him financed the
growth of Comfort and Kerrville. Faltin was especially interested in
helping mercantile businesses and industry get started. He invested
in land development, in the construction of lumber- and gristmills,
and in general merchandise stores such as the one established in
Kerrville by Charles Schreiner after the Civil War.
Another sign of stability and prosperity in a frontier settlement
was the water mill. Like the railroad a generation later, mills made life
easier, and they attracted other businesses, especially freighting. Cities
such as Victoria, La Grange, and Brenham already had flourishing
mills when the Germans came into these areas; the Comal and Gua­dalupe
Rivers at New Braunfels also afforded several excellent sites for
saw-, textile-, and gristmills. But building a European water mill and
keeping it running in the Texas Hill Country west of New Braunfels
was difficult. Although German millers brought skill and experience
to the Hill Country, their dependence upon the cantankerous envi­ronment
required quite untraditional adaptations in order to keep a
traditional mill in operation. Most of these millers served a second
apprenticeship on the frontier.
One of the earliest mills in the Fredericksburg area was built
in 1850 by Carl Hilmar Guenther from Saxony. Construction of this
mill took more than six months. The waterwheel and driving gears
were fashioned from native woods, and the buhrstones, or millstones,
were imported from France. Guenther boasted in letters to his parents
in Germany that this Live Oak Mill was a triumph of technology. A
few weeks later, when floodwaters tore away his dam, Guenther had
second thoughts about his adopted homeland. Stunned and disgusted,
all he could write home was, "The Lord had other plans!"
If anything stood out in the personality of Carl Hilmar
Guenther, who later founded Pioneer Flour Mills in San Antonio, it
was a kind of dogged determination to succeed in whatever he set his
mind to accomplish. When the damage had been repaired and a new
dam had been built, "so strong that it would never be torn down
again," he observed his work with pride. "After the mill was finished
and I walked around the place, I thought of you very earnestly, dear
Father. Completely lost in my musing, I looked up and saw the car­penter
was tying a green live oak branch on the gable. That called for
a celebration. We spent the evening gayly. I had gotten a small keg of
wine from my neighbor. Things really cheered up under the four big
live oak trees I have in the front yard. Mter the first few toasts, I
78
Christian Dietert.
master millwright
remembered my good parents who had so kindly furnished the money
for this undertaking. We all joined in a 'Lebewohl' to them which
resounded so heartily I felt you had to hear it even at that distance." 43
Besides Guenther, another early Hill Country millwright was
Nikolas Zink, the Bavarian engineer. Zink first laid out the streets of
New Braunfels for Prince Solms, and then, with Christian Dietert
and Michael Lindner, he planned the construction of two or three
Hill Country mills.
Christian Dietert was another expert millwright who found
it hard to second-guess the untuly Texas weather. In 1855 Dietert and
Zink built the Perseverance Mill at Comfort. Mrs. Emma MurckAlt­gelt,
whose husband financed the construction, called the project a
"thankless undertaking." The first dam, "considered indestructible,"
washed away. Then a drought kept the mill idle during the next year.
Dietert gave up and moved to Fredericksburg, where he no sooner
finished a new mill than it was swept away by a flash flood. 44
Figuring that he was now an expert on Texas floods and dry
spells, Dietert gambled that his next mill would succeed. In 1857 he
and a young millwright from Germany named Balthasar Lich erected
a mill on the cliffs of the Guadalupe River at the lumbering and shingle-
79
making camp of Kerrville. The river ensured ample water for contin­uous
operation, and an ingenious low dam running diagonally across
the river withstood floodwaters as long as Dietert lived.
During the four years between 1857 and 1861 when the Civil
War broke out, the German towns thrived. Substantial houses had
replaced the huts and cabins which the early settlers had hastily built
upon arrival. Immigration had reached an all-time high, and the popu­lation
of the towns and rural countryside rose sharply each year. Busi­ness
especially had increased at a brisk pace. German mills supplied
flour and lumber to cities such as San Antonio, and the demand for
German craftsmen and clerks was high. German teamsters drove their
wagons all over the state carrying raw produce from the thriving Ger­man
communities and returning with goods and merchandise which
the colonists could not make for themselves.
For a while, though, it looked as if the Civil War threatened
to undo what the German immigrants and Anglo-Americans had
struggled to accomplish together. For various complex reasons, many
German Texans opposed both slavery and secession, and this oppo­sition,
which the Germans did little to hide, set them at odds with
the majority of the rest of the state. Most Germans opposed slavery as
a matter of principle and hoped that the institution would disappear.
They believed, however, that the states could not solve the problem
without federal financial assistance to help the plantation owners
through the transition period. The small German farmers with their
modest holdings and often limited capital had little use for slaves.
The German intellectuals liked neither slavery nor the idea of disunion.
Many of them had left Germany disillusioned because of the failure
there to create a united German nation.
An insistence upon absolute human liberty was at the root of
the antislavery fervor. Friedrich Kapp quickly perceived the universal
implications of the issue. "The problem of slavery is not the problem
of the Negro," he wrote. "It is the eternal conflict between a small
privileged class and the great mass of the non privileged, the eternal
struggle between aristocracy and democracy. " 45 For Germans like Kapp,
slavery was a contradiction of what America represented. Many ideal­istic
Germans saw it as the destiny of the Germans and the Americans
to reunite in the common struggle to extend the frontiers of human
liberty. 46 In the North that ideal was not at all out of place; in the
South in 1861, it was extremely dangerous.
Not all Germans took such an active stand against slavery.
Ferdinand Lindheimer, editor of the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, wisely
cautioned German Texans not to antagonize the Anglo-American
80
settlers by meddling in their affairs. He warned that the problem was
an old one and that the German newcomers perhaps did not under­stand
all the issues. But Lindheimer also stood up for his German
countrymen when English-language newspapers accused Germans of
being traitors. As he clearly saw, the issue was not one which could be
discussed logically; he understood better than most other German
intellectuals that really two questions were at stake: slavery and the
Union. Many Southerners besides the Germans, notably the venerable
Sam Houston, opposed secession. Especially in the Texas frontier coun­ties,
many Anglo-Americans as well as Germans opposed secession
because it would leave them without protection from the Indians.
Had more Germans heeded Lindheimer's counsel, the tragedy
that followed might have been averted. Unionism was so strong in the
freethinking villages of Sisterdale and Comfort that several hundred
male Unionists organized a German battalion with companies from
Kendall, Gillespie, and Kerr Counties on the Fourth of July 1862.
When letters were intercepted allegedly connecting the German officers
Funeral of German Unionists at Comfort, August 20, 1865
81
with Southern Unionists such as A.J. Hamilton (later military governor
of Texas) and E.J. Davis (last Reconstruction governor), these counties
were declared in open rebellion and placed under strict martial law.
Believing that a safe-conduct had been issued, the German cadre assem­bled
for movement into Mexico but was ambushed by a Confederate
force on the early morning of August 10, 1862. This Battle of the
Nueces, as it came to be called, effectively crushed the idealism of the
German -Texan Unionists. No one dared even to gather the bones of
the fallen until after the war, when the remains were transported to
Comfort and buried under an impressive obelisk which bears the
inscription "Treue der Union" (Loyal to the Union), along with the
names of the victims. Like the name of "Loyal Valley" northwest of
Fredericksburg, this monument is one of the few remaining evidences
of the German -Texan Unionists.
This Unionist uprising severely strained relations between the
Germans and the Anglo-American majority. Ottilie Fuchs Goeth
described the horrors of the "lynch law." "A few miles from Marble
Falls, on the road to Johnson City, one can see a place where men
favoring the North were killed and thrown into a cavern. Many of the
best men of this area lost their lives at this spot. Gradually the men
grew more cautious and at least gave the appearance of supporting
the Confederates." 47
"To the German colonies," wrote a somewhat overwrought
August Siemering of Sisterdale, the war "had been like a nightmare.
No more immigrants from Europe had come since 1860. On the
contrary, thousands had left the state. A considerable number of them
had settled in Mexico," where German life "was strengthened at that
time by Austrian troops. Most of the German Texans went to the
Northern states, where they enlisted in the army, or back to Germany,"
he exclaimed, speaking, of course, of his small circle of friends, the
intellectual minority. "Many a house in Texas stood empty, and many
a field remained uncultivated. The small places were empty, and in
others there were only women and children left. When the Union flag
was flying again on the capitol in Austin, the question was raised
whether or not the Germans could find their home again in Texas." 48
Despite this grim outlook, conditions improved considerably
for the Germans during Reconstruction (1866-1874). They found
that Texas was indeed a home for them. In many respects Recon­struction
coincided with a boom in Texas agriculture and business.
For the Germans there was also a "boom" in politics. Because many
of them had been adamant Unionists and thus were able to take the
"Ironclad Oath," thus permitting them to participate in politics, they
82
were voted into a number oflocal, state, and federal offices. Governors
like A.J. Hamilton and E.J. Davis did not forget that the Germans
had stood alongside them when opposition to the Confederacy had
been dangerous, and under their administrations Germans held a num­ber
of political appointments. For many Germans who became promi­nent
during the last part of the 19th century, Reconstruction was
their introduction to business, politics, and public life. In short, they
became "practicing Americans" for the first time.
Within the state several developments contributed to an im­provement
in the standard ofliving during this boom in Texas history.
The first extensive railroad connections between Texas and other states
were laid in 1872, and manufacturing and commerce improved as a
result. The population grew, and German immigration to Texas began
again. Agriculture received an enormous boost, and cattle drives be­came
larger and more profitable. Families like the Klebergs, the Reals,
the Schreiners, and the Wilhelms, involved in cattle and sheep ranching
and in investment, were part of this growth. Also helpful to the rising
economy, Indian raids were declining rapidly, and after 1875 they
ceased almost entirely. Here, too, German volunteers, militiamen,
and rangers contributed their part by serving as frontier guards and
civil lawmen.
Abroad, one major event helped to complete the American­ization
of the German Texans. This, strangely enough, was the unifica­tion
of Germany.
The unification in 1871 after Germany's victory over France
in the Franco-Prussian War inspired great celebration in Texas. A Ger­man
grandmother whose parents had been immigrants wrote that
the German nationalistic anthem, '" The Watch on the Rhine,' had
taken to the field, and the news of [German] victory spread around
the world. We too heard the news and were surprised to read of the
astonishing victories .. . with capture of Emperor Napoleon III. Then
finally there came the renewal of the German Reich at Versailles. It
was difficult to fathom, and one feared to be imagining it. Still it was
true, and probably the reality was more meaningful than the papers
related. Germany was an empire as large and grand as in the days of
the Hohenstaufen. Young dream