USA > Texas > History of the German element in Texas from 1820-1850, and historical sketches of the German Texas singers' league and Houston turnverein from 1853-1913, 1st ed > Part 2
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The capital of the young Republic grew rapidly. quite a number of Germans taking an active part in the build- ing of the city. Many highly educated men, who had first adopted the strenuous life of the pioneer farmer when they came to Texas from the Fatherland, gradually left their
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German Element in Texas
farms for the more congenial life and employment in the city, and the Germans of Austin have forever been a prom- inent social, political and industrial factor of the capital of Texas.
CHAPTER III. German Immigration From 1830-1840.
It is highly probable that some German adventurers en- tered Texas as early as 1800, but no records show their existence. An impenetrable veil is over their fate. A few German settlers came with the colonists brought by Stephen F. Austin and Baron Bastrop, but all we know of them are their names. The first real and productive German immigration to Texas was practically caused by the French July revolution of 1830. This Paris convulsion shook many of the thrones of the petty German princes and threatened for a moment to topple into ruins the whole fabric of abso- lutism carefully constructed by Prince Metternich at the Vienna Congress. When the storm had subsided and quiet again restored by the liberal use of bayonets and gen- darmes, a detestable system of espionage became rampant in many of the German States and principalities. Hundreds of men in all walks of life were put under rigid police sur- veillance, while many were even imprisoned for expressing or merely holding different political views from those of their governments. The reactionary element was triumph- ant, while the progressive, liberal minded men were harassed everywhere. Men of education and science, university pro- fessors and teachers, jurists and physicians, suffered most from this political persecution. The press was gagged and literary productions subjected to merciless censure.
This deplorable state of affairs naturally created in the hearts of many men of intellect and energy the desire to free themselves in some way from these intolerable political fetters. The revolution, or rather insurrection, having failed, these men were anxious to emigrate to some country with free institutions and a liberal Government, and to found and establish there new homes for themselves and
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their families under more favorable conditions. Naturally their eyes and thoughts turned westward, where the ris- ing young republic of the United States guaranteed to everybody that freedom of thought and action that had been banished from Europe and especially so from the German States.
During the ten years from 1820-1830 many highly edu- cated Germans, and men of means, had made extensive travels in the United States, west of the Alleghany Moun- tains, and their letters and reports about that new country proved a veritable revelation to their friends. Many books of travels were published, of which those of Bromme, Gerke, Arends and Duden were the most prominent. The last named. Gottfried Duden, came to America in 1824 and lived for four years in Missouri, then still a wilderness and the most western part of the United States. He re- turned to Germany in 1828, filled with unbounded admira- tion for the country he had visited and unlimited enthusi- asm for its liberal institutions and Government. His book "Bericht über eine Reise nach westlichen Staaten Nord Amerika's und einen mehrjährigen Aufenthalt am Mis- souri" (Report of a journey to the Western States of North America and a sojourn of several years on the banks of the Missouri River) was published in 1829 at St. Gallen, Switzerland. The strict censure practiced throughout Ger- many, would have either eliminated much of its valuable information, thus rendering the book less interesting and useful, or, what is even more probable, might have entirely forbidden its publication.
Duden gives a graphic description of the wonderful country he had visited, of the fertility of the soil, of its vast forests, its extensive prairies, its abundance of fish and game of all kinds, and dwells with great stress on the political, social and religious freedom granted to every settler. He proclaims the land of the Mississippi Valley the new Canaan, the land where millions of the poor and
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oppressed would find peaceful homes and a comfortable 'living. In the preface to his book, Duden makes the fol- lowing caustic but true remarks about the conditions, pre- vailing at that time in Germany: "The poverty, the ad- ministrative coercion, the oppressive financial systems, the tolls and excises, form with us invisibly, and therefore the more dangerous, a kind of serfdom for the common people, which, in some instances, is worse than legally recognized slavery. The puerile idea that one could fill his pockets with gold on the very shores of America has ceased ; but one thing is unquestionably guaranteed to the immigrant ; a high degree of personal liberty and assurance of comfortable living to an extent that we can not think of in Europe. Millions can find room on the magnificent prairies and valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri, and a nature that has long been waiting for the settler and farmer."
Duden's words fell on open ears and ready minds. The book was read eagerly by thousands of interested men in Switzerland, Baden, Wuerttemberg, Hessen, Rhenish Prus- sia, Hanover and Oldenburg and had a far-reaching in- fluence. The protracted stagnation of industrial life after the wars of liberation, the unsatisfactory social conditions and, above all, the intensely unpopular system of political reaction, had created among thousands of the higher classes the so-called feeling of being "Europamude" (tired of Europe). The time for cmigration was ripe and Duden's book was the mariner's compass pointing to the proper direction for the burdened and distressed. To the former emigration for economic reasons was now added the emigration influenced by political and romantic ideas. University professors and students alike were fascinated by the plans of creating one or more German States in America with genuine free and popular life, and societies were formed to bring these plans to maturity. Ernest Bruncken in his "German Political Refugees from 1815-
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1860" states that the German immigrants of the early. 30s came in more or less organized groups. They had more or less definite ideas about establishing States in the United States. These States might or might not be members of the Union, but were to be predominantly German in character. "They would have the Government of the United States itself bilingual, and if the Americans would not grant this-why, then the German States would secede and set up a National Government of their own." (Bruncken, Pol. Ref., Chap. 2.)
For the purpose of furthering this wholesale emigration, societies were formed in different cities of Western Ger- many, the "Giessener Auswanderungs Gesellschaft" (Emi- gration Society of Giessen) being the most prominent. G. G. Benjamin in his excellent study, "Germans in Texas," makes the following mention of the objects of this society : "It was organized originally by a number of university men, among whom Carl Follen was the leading spirit. Its aims, as stated in a pamphlet issued in 1833, were: "The founding of a German State, which would of course, have to be a member of the United States, but with maintenance of a form of Government which will as- sure the continuance of German customs, German lan- guage and create a genuine free and popular life." The intention was to occupy an unsettled and unorganized ter- ritory "in order that a German republic, a rejuvenated Germany may arise in North America." The members were men of means. Some held high official and profes- sional positions. They sailed in two vessels from Bremen to New Orleans in 1834. After the arrival in this country dissensions arose and the company was broken up. An account of this undertaking is given in Niles' Register and shows clearly what vague ideas existed at that time." (Ben- jamin's "Germans in Texas," page 6.) While these Uto- pian plans were never and could never be accomplished, still the western part of the United States gained much by
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this immigration, and so did Texas, then still part of Mex- ico. It brought to this country a great number of highly educated and energetic men who not only assimilated them- selves readily to existing conditions, but who became the basic element of these embryonic States. It was their hard and persevering labor that opened a vast territory to civilization and made millions of acres productive.
Carl Follen, mentioned above, born at Romrod, Hessen, in 1796, professor at the University of Giessen, is known as the organizer of the Liberal German Students' Societies (Burschenschaften) and prominent political reformer and economist. His many works were a flaming protest against the reactionary system of Metternich, and as early as 1819 he wrote his noted memorial, "Denkschrift über die Deutsche Bildungsanstalt in Nord Amerika" ("Memorial on the German Educational Institute in North America"), in which he developed with great emphasis the establish- ing of a German University in the United States, pointing out the necessity of such an institution, in order to pre- serve German customs and ideals in the United States, and especially in the German State, which he believed would be founded somewhere in the Mississippi Valley. Publication of this memorial was forbidden, but a certified copy is to be found in the State archives in Berlin.
Coming to America, Follen lived four years with Duden on his farm in Missouri, then moved to New York and became the first professor of Germanics at Harvard Uni- versity. He was active in the first slavery agitation, and forever advised the introduction of German athletics (Turn- unterricht) in our public schools. He drowned on the high sea in 1840 while being a passenger on a steamer from New York to Boston.
CHAPTER IV. First German Settlements In Texas.
Among the first Germans who came to Texas must be mentioned Friedrich Ernst and Charles Fordtran, and it is generally assumed that the history of the Germans in Texas begins with the coming of these two pioneers. This was in the year 1831. Ernst, a bookkeeper by profession, was from Varel, Oldenburg, and he, like many others, be- ing dissatisfied with the prevailing conditions in Germany, emigrated with his family to America in 1829, landing in New York, where, for more than a year, he kept a boarding house or hotel. There he became acquainted with Charles Fordtran, a tanner, who was born in Minden, Westphalia, May 7, 1801, and in the spring of 1831 both decided to emigrate to the new State of Missouri. At that time the voyage from New York to the upper Mississippi by water was greatly preferred to the slow and dangerous overland route of 1500 miles.
Ernst, with his family, and Fordtran therefore took passage on a ship sailing from New York to New Orleans, where they arrived in March, 1831. There they heard of the favorable land propositions in Texas, where each mar- ried settler was to receive one league and one labor of land (4605 acres) free of charge, and decided to locate in Texas instead of going to Missouri.
On the Mexican schooner Saltillo, Captain Huskin, they arrived in Harrisburg, on Buffalo bayou, on the 3d of April, 1831. After a stay of five weeks at Harrisburg, which then boasted of five or six log houses, they set out to their future new home, a league of land selected by Ernst, where the town of Industry, Austin County, now stands. One-fourth of this league Ernst gave to his com- panion Fordtran, who also received one league from S. M.
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Williams as a compensation for the surveying of two leagues.
While Ernst and Fordtran were not the first Germans coming to Texas, they established the first permanent Ger- man settlement there and Mrs. Ernst is universally credited with having been the first German woman in Texas. Ernst and Fordtran built rude log houses on their land several miles apart, but the harmony between them soon ceased. Then Ernst called his place "Industry," while Fordtran's farm received the less inviting name of "Indolence," or "Lazytown," as it was generally called.
Nothing is known of the cause of the disagreement be- tween these two pioneers, but the significance of the names given to the farms leaves room for suggestions as to the origin of the quarrel. Ernst wrote a letter to a friend of his in Oldenburg by the name of Schwarz, informing him about the favorable land conditions in Texas. This letter was published in some newspaper, and through this report several German families were induced to emigrate to Texas. (Full text of this letter in English as translated by G. G. Benjamin, Appendix A.)
Ernst died in 1858, but his widow, who later married a Mr. Stoehr, lived for 57 years at the place where they had settled in 1831. She died at Industry in 1888, at the patriarchal age of 88 years. At the age of 84 years she gave the following graphic description of her family's first years of hardship and privation on their Texas farm: "In New York we had become acquainted with the old rich Mr. J. J. Astor, a stanch and honest German, who advised my husband to start a dairy if he wished to make money. He offered him a 10-acre lot on the East River, where Pearl Street now is, for a few thousand dollars on deferred payments, but although I urged my husband to accept that offer, he refused it, and in April, 1831, we came to Texas, landing at Harrisburg. Houston was then not even known by name, and no ship dared to land at Galveston from fear
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of the Karankawee Indians (?) who inhabited and infested the island. On ox-carts we traveled 50 miles westward to the town of San Felipe De Austin, where we found one German named Wertzner, among the 300 inhabitants of the place. There we were on the border of civilization. West- ward and northward roamed the Indians, and no white man had yet risked to cross the Mill Creek.
"My husband soon set out on an exploring expedition and coming to the forks of Mill Creek, where Industry now stands, he selected a league of land for us, being attracted by the romantic scenery, the pure water, and fine forests around. After having lived in the most primitive style for several months on our new homestead, we sold about one-fourth of our grant, for 10 cows. Now we had at least milk and butter, which was a real Godsend, for the con- stant monotony of venison and dry cornbread had almost became nauseating. We lived in a miserable little hut, covered with thatch that was not waterproof. We suffered a great deal in winter, as we had no heating stove. Our shoes gave out, and not knowing how to make moccasins, we had to go barefooted.
"For nearly two years we lived alone in this wilderness, but fortunately we were not troubled by the Indians, who were quiet and friendly. In the fall of 1833, some Germans settled in our neighborhood, among them the families of Bartels, Zimmerschreit and Juergens. We naturally hailed their coming with great joy.
In 1834 the following German families arrived here: Amsler, Wolters, Kleberg, von Roeder, Frels, Siebel, Grass- meyer, Biegel and some others whose names I have for- gotten. The first settler being killed by Indians was Mr. J. Robinson, the father of Colonel J. Robinson, who lived near Warrentown. In the fall of 1834 the Indians kid- naped and abducted the wife and two children of Mr. Juergens, who had just settled at Post Oak Point, four miles from here. Through the efforts of Father Muldoon,
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German Element in Texas
a Catholic Missionary, Mrs. Juergens was returned to her distracted husband, but of the two children, no tidings ever came."
The courage and perseverance of these early German pioneers is worthy of the highest praise. Here they were thousands of miles from their native country, not only in a foreign land, but in the solitude of a wilderness, with dangers of all kinds lurking around them, but unflinchingly did they bear all the numerous inconveniences and hard- ships incident to pioneer life. Their unreserved love of freedom was the bright star shining above them and guid- ing them through all the dark hours and troubles of the first years of frontier life, and assisted these intrepid men and women to battle against and finally conquer seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Ernst's settlement, "Industry," grew rapidly, and for years was one of the most prosperous places in Austin County. It has remained a strictly German town up to the present day, with a thriving and progressive population.
In the years 1832 and 1833 two attempts were made to establish settlements between the lower Nueces River and the Rio Grande. Both were doomed to failure. Johann von Kackwitz, a German nobleman from Wurtemberg, had received a land grant from Mexico in 1832, along the lower Nueces River, and had induced some German families to settle on his land, who had to experience all the hard- ships and privations of pioneer life in a new country. It seems that Rackwitz was more of an adventurer than an impresario; having no means of his own, he borrowed money from all sources by giving deeds on his lands as security and in 1834 returned to Germany, ostensibly with the intention of bringing back more settlers, but he did not do anything, except to publish a pamphlet at Stuttgart in 1836, entitled. "Kurze und treue Belehrung für deutsche und schweizerische Auswanderer, die an der Begründung der Colonie Johann von Rackwitz theilehmen wollen. ( Brief
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German Element in Texas
and true instructions to German and Swiss emigrants who wish to participate in the founding of the Colony Johann von Rackwitz in Texas.)
After this he returned to Matamoras where he led a life of dissipation and revelry. No more immigrants arrived and as the conditions of the land grants were not fulfilled. the land escheated to the Mexican Government, everybody who had assisted Rackwitz finally losing everything. The struggling colonists were partly killed and partly fled from their homes, when Santa Anna's army invaded Texas in the spring of 1836.
Another impresario of this time was Dr. Charles Beales of New York, who received an extensive land grant from Mexico on the Lower Rio Grande in 1832. This grant comprised some of the land granted to Joseph Vehlein in 1826, of which the latter had never made any use. The Beales concession bears the date of October 9, 1832. In November, 1833, Dr. Beales sailed with a party of colonists from New York and landed at Copano, on Aransas Bay, at the end of December. The expedition consisted mostly of Irishmen, with only two German families from Bavaria, Schwartz and Wolter, and one single German, Heinrich Taloer, among them. From Copano the party marched through Goliad, then took the old San Antonio de Bexar trail, and, after a slow and toilsome travel, arrived at Las Moras on the "Beales River grant," as it was called, and established the settlement known as La Villa de Dolores in March, 1834.
A second supply of colonists, arriving at Copano in August of the same year, was deterred from going to Dolores by the report started by a settler from Powers' Colony that all the settlers of Dolores had been massacred by the Indians.
In the spring of the year 1835 some more colonists, con- sisting of three families, five heads of families and 10
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German Element in Texas
single men, reached Dolores. A saw and gristmill were erected and other improvements made. In September, 1835, Dr. Beales returned to New York to bring out colonists who had arrived from Ireland and Germany, but for want of immediate means and other causes, he was delayed there until the spring of 1836, and then the news of the revolu- tion in Texas put an end to all his plans.
The colonists, hearing of Santa Anna's approach, became terror-stricken and dispersed, some going to Matamoras, while others joined the Texans in their fight for liberty and independence. The first attempts of establishing set- tlements between the Nueces and Rio Grande had failed.
Some Germans, who came to Texas and settled there on land received from the Mexican Government several years before the arrival of Ernst and Fordtran, are men- tioned by L. F. Lafrentz in "Texnische Monatshefte," Vol. 11, No. 2, 1905, but nothing is known of most of them except the recording of their land patents in the archives of the general land office at Austin. The first of these pioneers was a German-Swiss named Henry Rueg. He had emigrated to the United States in 1818, and having suf- ficient means, tried to establish a German colony on the left banks of the Red River in Louisiana. Having failed in this enterprise, he came to Texas in 1821, where he was appointed "jefe politico" (county judge) of Nacog- doches by the Mexican Governor. In Stephen F. Austin's colony the following Germans received land patents: In 1824 Gabriel Strohschneider, whose title was recorded under the name of Gabriel Straw Snider, as he had either Ameri- canized his name in this absurd fashion, or was unable to write. In 1827 two more German names are recorded in the general land office, viz. : Peter Conrad and John Keller, both in Austin's colony, and in 1828 Peter Bertrand. It is very probable that more Germans than those mentioned here were in Austin's colony between 1820 and 1830, but their names can not be identified from the records, because
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they were either misspelled by the Mexican officials or they changed their names voluntarily to make them sound more harmoniously to Mexican and American ears.
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CHAPTER V. Robert Kleberg, the Founder of Cat Spring.
Among all the Germans that have come to Texas, the family of Robert Kleberg, mentioned above, occupies the first rank. For nearly 80 years members of the Kleberg family have helped to make history in Texas, and it is only fitting in a history of the German element in Texas to make proper account of Robert, Johann, Christian, Justus Kleberg, Sr. Born in Herstelle, Westphalia, on September 10, 1803, he received his education at the gymnasium of Holzminden, and after graduating there, entered the Uni- versity of Goettingen, where he studied jurisprudence, and received the diploma of doctor juris. After having served in different judicial positions, he, like many others of the best men in Germany, became dissatisfied with the military and administrative despotism, prevalent everywhere, and decided in the year 1834 to emigrate to America. He states his reason for this important change in his life in the following language, taken from a memorandum of his own writing :
"I wished to live under a republican form of Govern- ment, with unbounded personal, religious and political lib- erty, free from the petty tyrannies and the many disad- vantages and evils of the old countries. Prussia smarted at that time under an offensive military despotism. I was (and have ever remained) an enthusiastic lover of repub- lican institutions, and I expected to find in Texas, above all other countries, the blessed land of my most fervent hopes."-(Kleberg notes, 1876.)
On September 4, 1834, Kleberg married Miss Rosalia von Roeder, daughter of former Lieutenant Ludwig Anton Siegmund von Roeder, who, too, was anxious to emigrate to Texas with his family. The party had first contem-
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plated going to one of the Western States, but principally through the information gained about Texas from the let- ter of F. Ernst, it was now determined to go to Texas. His memorandum continues :
"As soon as this was decided, we sent some of our party, three unmarried brothers of my wife, Louis, Albrecht and Joachim, and their sister Valesca, with a servant, ahead of us to Texas for the purpose of selecting a place where we could all meet and begin operations. They were well pro- vided with money, clothing, a light wagon and harness, tools and generally everything necessary to commence a settlement. Six months after our advance party had left, and after we had received news of their safe arrival, we followed on the last day of September, 1834, in the ship Congress, Captain J. Adams."
The emigrants on this ship, all bound for Texas, con- sisted of the following, viz .: Robert Kleberg and his wife, Lieutenant von Roeder and wife, his daughters, Louise and Caroline; his sons. Rudolph, Otto and Wilhelm von Roeder, Louis Kleberg, Mrs. Otto von Roeder, nee Pauline von Donop, and Miss Antoinette von Donop (afterward wife of Rudolph von Roeder). The other passengers were nearly all from Oldenburg, one of them a brother-in-law of Mr. Ernst, John Reinermann and family, William Frels and others. They were all bound for San Felipe de Austin, and after a voyage of 60 days landed in New Orleans.
To quote further from Kleberg's notes: "Here we heard very bad accounts about Texas, and were advised not to go there, as it was said that Texas was infested with robbers. murderers and ferocious Indians. But we were determined to risk it, and could not afford to disappoint our friends who had preceded us. As soon, therefore, as we succeeded in chartering the schooner Sabine, about two weeks after we had landed in New Orleans, we sailed for Brazoria. Texas. After a voyage of eight days, we were wrecked off Galveston Island, on December 22, 1834. Among the
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