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 6
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When Fisher arrived in Germany nearly one year of the time limit of his contract had already elapsed. Later the Texas Legislature, on January 20, 1845, granted an exten- sion of time until March 1, 1846, but when Fisher began ne- gotiations in Germany for colonizing the land of his grant there were but 10 months left for sending the emigrants to Texas. Fisher had obtained from Count Boos-Waldeck, whom he had told that he intended to visit Germany, a
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letter of introduction to Count Castell on November 10, 1843, while Waldeck was in Galveston. This letter he sent to Count Castell from Bremen on March 12, 1844, stating that he would come to Mainz at the earliest possible time to lay before the directorate of the Adelsverein his coloni- zation plan. Count Castell acknowledged receipt of this communication on May 18, stating that he would be pleased to confer with Consul Fisher on this project, adding that he had already written several times to Count Boos-Wal- deck to open negotiations with Mr. Fisher, but that he had refused to do so, because he believed a colonization on the Fisher and Miller grant an impossibility. Count Wal- deck's advice was again disregarded, and on June 24, 1844, the Adelsverein bought the land contract of Fisher and Miller, paying $9000 in three deferred payments and as- suming to carry out all the conditions demanded by the State of Texas.
The original Fisher and Miller land grant dated from June 7, 1842, but was renewed as "Fisher and Miller's sec- ond contract" on September 1, 1843, and, as stated above, again extended by the Texas Legislature on January 29, 1845, to March 1, 1846. The lands of this concession lay on the southern banks of the Colorado River, between the Llano and San Saba Rivers, the nearest points to exist- ing settlements being about 100 miles west of Austin, 150 miles from San Antonio and almost 300 miles from the sea coast. The whole tract contained, according to an official statement of the Adelsverein (Handbook for Emigrants, Bremen, 1846, page 80), 3,878,000 acres. That almost half of this territory was unsuited for agricultural purposes, being traversed by the San Saba mountain ridge, was not mentioned, probably because nobody then knew anything definite about the topography of the San Saba country. Fisher had never seen the land, yet he declared unhesitat- ingly that it was all fine farming land and that the Adels- verein could casily settle there 6000 families with the ex-
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pense of $80,000. It seems that Count Castell was hyp- notized by the great extent of the territory, the same being about ten times the size of the dukedom of Nassau, for he implicitly believed in all that Fisher said, whose sole interest in the matter was the quick disposal of his claim, and, without waiting for any information about the land from Prince Solms, who, as we know, was in Texas, he entered into a contract with Henry F. Fisher, purchas- ing unknown lands that no white man had yet visited, lands inhabited by the savage and hostile Comanche Indians, and assuming onerous conditions that the Adelsverein was utterly unable to fulfill. One of the conditions of the State of Texas was that the contractor had to survey the land at his own expense, dividing the same into sections of 620 acres, each alternate section remaining the property of the State, while the State did not promise any assist- ance against the Indians, who might object to being de- prived of their customary hunting grounds.
The surveying of the tract alone later cost the Adels- verein about $80,000, in other words, the full amount for which it was capitalized.
According to the contract (Uebereinkunft) between Count Castell, as representative of the Adelsverein and Henry F. Fisher, representing the proprietors of Fisher and Miller's land grant, signed at Mainz on June 24, 1844, article 3, (section 2), Fisher and Miller were to receive one- third of all the profits made by the Verein through the sale of lands, or from industrial establishments, while they agreed not to sell their interests in the enterprise before 1848 to anybody, even if they were offered more than the Adelsverein was willing to pay.
Previous to any profit sharing the Adelsverein had, of course, to be reimbursed for all expenses made in the in- terest of the colonization project. In order to protect the interests of both contracting parties, section 3 of article 3, created a colonial committee (Colonialrath) in which
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the Adelsverein had five and Fisher and Miller three votes. To this colonial committee was granted exclusive execu- tive power in all colonization matters, and Fisher could ap- point a substitute in his place. The officers of this colo- nial committee were to be in Texas and during Fisher's ab- sence Burchard Miller had power of attorney to represent their interests (article 6, paragraph 3). But it seems that Prince Solms did not recognize Miller's authority, for in a letter to Fisher, dated Houston, April 10, 1845, Miller complains bitterly about the treatment he received from the Prince, who had said that the Adelsverein did not know Miller, and that he (Miller) had no business whatever in the colonial committee or the colonization project. He calls the Prince's attitude a "bombastic boast, such as could only be imported from Germany."
On December 14, 1844, the directorate of the Adelsverein had to acknowledge the failure of the purchase of Bour- geois' land contract through the publication of the follow- ing notice: "The grant of Bourgeois d'Orvanne has been declared forfeited by the Congress of Texas, but the com- pany has made another contract with H. Fisher, by which the more northerly situated, extraordinarily fertile and healthy lands on the right banks of the Colorado River have been acquired (!) and come into possession of the Adelsverein. The Directorate."
This statement is either intentionally misleading, or Count Castell was unable to properly interpret the meaning of the contract entered into between the Adelsverein and Fisher and Miller. The latter had no land to sell and the former had only acquired the privilege to settle a certain number of emigrants on a certain tract of land that remained in possession of the Republic of Texas until certain condi- tions were fulfilled, when the State would execute deeds to the colonists. For each 100 families who settied on the grant the contractors would receive 10 sections of land of 610 acres each, and for each 100 single men, 10 half
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sections of 320 acres each. This was the gist of the con- tract, yet it seems that the Adelsverein, as many writers (Kapp, Siemering, von Rosenberg, von Meusebach) con- tend, was under the impression that it owned several mil- lion acres in Texas, which it could either give or sell to the prospective colonists, or where large landed estates for such members of the German nobility could be estab- lished, who were barred from inheriting land in Germany by the law of progeniture.
CHAPTER XV.
Colonization Under the Auspices of the Adelsverein,
After the purchase of Fisher and Miller's land grant the Adelsverein was ready to proceed with its colonization project, and preparations were made to send to Texas the first party of emigrants. The association entered into a mutual agreement with each emigrant, in which the Verein in consideration of the payment of 300 or 600 gulden ($120 or $240) not only promised to bring the emigrants to Texas, but also to furnish free transportation from the place of landing to the colony in wagons and tents of the society, and the furnishing of a rude dwelling, to be built on their lands in the colony. This the Adelsverein expected to accomplish for half of the amount of money deposited by each emigrant. The other half was credited to the emi- grants who could draw on it for farming implements or extra rations from the company's stores until they had made their first crops. The officials of the Adels- verein had calculated that the cost of transportation from Galveston to Port Lavaca and from there to the point of destination (about 300 miles) would be $+ per head, and that a log house could be furnished for $24, while in fact the transportation of each emigrant cost the Adelsverein about $20 and a house could not be built for less than $100. Neither Count Castell nor any other official of the association had the slightest idea of the conditions, prices or cost of living in Texas, and neither Bourgeois nor Fisher found it to their interest to enlighten the German officials on these important points. Bourgeois d'Orvanne and Henry F. Fisher were the evil spirits of the Adels- verein and it was primarily their scheming and misrepre- sentations that caused the carly collapse of the enterprise. But this can in no wise excuse the stupendous incompe-
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tency and childish credulity of Count Castell and other of- ficials of the Verein, whose actions were an unbroken chain of gigantic blunders.
The association agreed furthermore to give to each head of a family a provisional title for 320 acres of land and to each single man for 160 acres, which title would be per- fected after three years of continuous living on the land by the Government of Texas, but the colonist had to re- imburse the Verein for the cost of survey and settle all other indebtedness to the association before he could re- ceive a clear title. During the first three years the colonists were also subject to regulations established by the Adels- verein, as well as to the laws of Texas. Thus everything seemed to be properly arranged, and in September, 1844, the first party of emigrants assembled in Bremen to sail to the promised land.
Prince Solms-Braunfels, the commissioner general, with the German members of the colonial committee, and Bour- geois d'Orvanne had arrived at Galveston on July 1, 1844. Prince Solms' first sad experience was the information that Bourgeois' land grant had been forfeited and would neither be extended nor renewed. Thus he was tempora- rily the executive head of a colonization company without an acre of land, except the plantation Nassau. The situ- ation was hardly improved when he was informed of the purchase of the Fisher and Miller grant and when he found that the land was almost 300 miles inland, in a wilderness, inhabited by dangerous tribes of hostile savages and far removed from access to the actual necessities of life.
On November 23, 1844, the brig Johann Dethard from Bremen, arrived at Galveston with the first emigrants for the new colony, followed in December by the Ferdinand and Herschel, bringing in all 200 families of about 700 people, with their belongings, all anxious to be trans- ported as quickly as possible to their future homes. This. under the circumstances stated above, was impossible, and
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Prince Solms, who received the immigrants at Galveston, was at first nonplused. The first thing to do was to bring the immigrants to the mainland and there await further developments. The immigrants were told that the lands of the Verein could not be reached at the present time for various reasons, but they would be well taken care of by the Adelsverein until they could be installed on their promised lands.
Among the passengers of the first emigrant ship of the Adelsverein were quite a number of well-educated men, who were willing for the sake of personal freedom to change their life of comparative ease and comfort in a civilized country to the life of toil and hardship of a pioneer in an uncivilized land, and endure all privations and inconveniences of the frontiersmen in uninhabited regions. Mention should be made of Fritz Goldbeck, who came to Texas with his parents in the ship Johann Dethart in 1844. He was then only fourteen years old and with his family experienced all the troubles of these early days. He was the first German-Texas poet, ,having written a great number of poems, which, in a simple and unpre- tending language, are descriptive of the settlers' life on the prairies of Texas, and bring to memory many inter- esting facts and occurrences of the primitive days of the Lone Star State. In 1865 he was appointed Mayor of New Braunfels by Governor Davis, and later re-elected. The last years of his life, after having traveled exten- sively in Mexico and California, Mr. Goldbeck passed in San Antonio, where he died in 1900, at the age of 70 years. It may be interesting to note that of the descendants of the families of Goldbeck and Mueller, his wife's family, who came to Texas in 1844 and 1848, seventeen members strong, now still four members are living in San Antonio and Fredericksburg, these being Mrs. F. Goldbeck and three sisters. (Appendix D contains a few of the poems of Fritz Goldbeck in German, which are selected from his
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book, "Seit fünfzig Jahren". (For fifty years), published in 1895 at San Antonio.)
All immigrants were first transported by small craft to Matagorda Bay, about 100 miles southwest of Galveston, and landed at Indianport, later Indianola, or Carlshafen, as Prince Solms christened the place. There the colonists celebrated their first Christmas in the new world, and although the prince tried to make it as comfortable and pleasant for them as possible, many were the tears shed at the thoughts of their far away homes and the uncertain prospects of the near future. In tents and hastily con- structed wooden sheds the immigrants remained at Carls- hafen for over two months before the slow and tedious march into the interior began, while Prince Solms was hunting for a proper place to establish the first relay station for his proteges. By the aid of Dr. Ferdinand Lindheimer, a well known botanists, who had been in Texas since 1836, he was fortunate to find such a place at "Las Fontanas" on the Comal and Guadaloupe Rivers. He bought 1300 acres of land for $800, on March 14, 1845, and seven days later, on March 21, the wearied colonists struck camp there, after a long and tiresome march of 150 miles. The company's engineers at once platted part of the land for a city and thus the first German settlement in West Texas was born and christened New Braunfels, after the family castle of Prince Solms on the Lahn River. The colonists received each a town lot free of charge and the families each 10 acres of adjoining land, which gifts in no way invalidated their previous claims on 160, or 320 acres of the land grant. Then the colonists quickly built their log houses in the new town, while on an elevation a larger house for the prince and the officers of the com- pany was built, to which Prince Solms gave the some- what euphemistic name of "Sophienburg."
During all this time the Adelsverein, according to its contract with the emigrants, had to provide them with
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means of subsistence and this had to be continued in New Braunfels until the colonists could harvest and dispose of their first crop. This constant drain on the association's treasury increased in proportion with the arrival of more immigrants during 1845, and, being far in excess of the calculations based on Henry F. Fisher's information, was one of the chief reasons of the early collapse of the Adels- verein.
Prince Carl zu Solms-Braunfels was a true cavalier of the old regime. A gentleman by birth and breeding, he was of a genial, prepossessing disposition, kind and oblig- ing, stately in appearance and demeanor, with every ad- vantage for court life and the drawing room. Trans- ferred to the prairies of Texas and the life of the fron- tiersman, he could not but fail with even the best of in- tentions. His appointment as executive head of the Ger- man immigration in Texas was another stupendous blun- der of the Adelsverein. Prince Solms was just as defi- cient in business ability as Count Castell, the general manager in Germany, and their combined management or rather mismanagement of affairs of the Adelsverein could only end in disaster. After the founding of New Braunfels and the building of the Sophienburg, Prince Solms unex- pectedly returned to Germany, leaving to his successor the affairs in a condition bordering on chaos. He had stayed there but little over one month and departed before his successor had arrived.
He never returned to Texas, but when the citizens of New Braunfels, at the twenty-fifth anniversary of their city, cabled the prince their greetings he acknowledged the courtesy with the following cabled message :
To the Citizens of New Braunfels :
My sincerest thanks for your kind remembrance at the jubilee of the city of New Braunfels. It surprised me as much as I was delighted over it.
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Glory and happiness to those who have manfully estab- lished their homes in the new country
May God give continued blessing and prosperity to my beloved fellow countrymen at New Braunfels. Do not forget me, as I am thinking of you often in faithful af- fection.
Carl Prince zu Solms,
K. K. (Imperial Royal) Field Marshal Lieutenant. Wiesbaden, May 6, 1870.
CHAPTER XVI. Further German Immigration Under the Adelsverein in 1845.
Prince Solms was in such haste to leave New Braunfels that he did not await the arrival of his successor, Baron Otfried, Hans von Meusebach, who had been appointed commissioner general on February 24, 1845. When von Meusebach arrived, he soon saw that the finances of the association were in a hopeless condition. The company's treasurer, being ordered to make out a complete statement of all assets, credits and obligations of the Adelsverein in Texas, could not comply with the order. He explained to Meusebach that the prince, the treasurer, the doctor, the engineer and other officials had issued orders, due bills, drafts and notes promiscuously, and that no proper account of them had been kept in the company's books. Meuse- bach, a man of great energy, at once decided to follow Prince Solms to Galveston, and obtain from him the de- sired information as to the financial standing of the Verein in Texas. He met the prince in Galveston and it seems best to let von Meusebach speak for himself about their meeting. In "Answers to Interrogatories," pages 12-13, he says :
"I found Prince Solms there with an attachment against him, taken out by some uncasy creditor of the company. I lifted the attachment by paying the claim out of my credit of $10,000 under the condition that he would urge the directorate in Europe to send immediately, and, with- out waiting for a report, a credit twice as much as I had along, because the items of indebtedness picked up by me on the road from Carlshafen to New Braunfels and from there to Galveston showed the association being in debt to that amount. I told him that the welfare of the immi-
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grants depended for the present on the means of the com- pany that had promised to support them in provisions until they could raise a crop and to furnish them with everything necessary to make a crop either for pay, or on credit.
"I have no doubt that the prince did notify the direc- tory in Europe according to promise. But that commit- tee probably had at that time no more available funds on hand. Having failed to get from the prince in Galveston any reliable information in regard to the financial opera- tions of the company and its debts and having been re- ferred again to the treasurer at New Braunfels, who had declared that he could not make a full statement, I had to go to work at it myself. I restored order in the financial department and by close management inspired the creditors with confidence and would have kept both order and con- fidence, but for some new stupendous blunder on the part of the directory in Europe in the shipment of the emi- grants in the fall of 1845. In August, 1845, I had sent a complete statement of all amounts, credits and debits of the company in Texas showing that a debt of $19,460.02 was left by my predecessor in office, besides using up my own credit of $10,000 for provisions for the immigrants at New Braunfels. By the first of November this debt had increased to $24,000 and I requested the directorate in Europe to send immediately this amount as a separate fund irrespective of the amounts necessary for the recep- tion of the new immigrants to be shipped in the fall of 1845, and for further operations."
If the Adelsverein had been true to its public declara- tions and its pledge it would have remitted the amount asked for, but von Meusebach's urgent request was never complied with. In fact, the association was practically bankrupt there and then and it was only due to the great activity of Meusebach and his astonishing resourcefulness that the sinking ship was kept afloat for some time longer.
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Von Meusebach knew that he had to expect several thou- sand ,new immigrants by November of that year and that it was absolutely necessary to establish another station nearer the land grant, if the colonists should ever reach it. Therefore, with a small exploring party, he left New Braunfels in the latter part of August, advancing in a northwesterly direction towards the Llano River, being the first white man penetrating into that country. About 75 miles from New Braunfels he found the desired location near the banks of the Pedernales River, it being about two-thirds of the distance to the nearest boundary line of the grant. There he bought 10,000 acres of arable land, well watered and timbered, on credit, equipped and sent out a surveying party of 26 men, led by Lieutenant Bene, in December and had a wagon road established from New Braunfels to the new settlement. The whole tract was laid out in 10-acre lots and distributed among immi- grants of 1845 and 1846 as preliminary homesteads. This was the beginning of Fredericksburg, today the county seat of Gillespie County and one of the most flourishing German settlements in Texas.
When von Meusebach had left Europe for Texas at the end of February, 1845, he had been informed that the Adelsverein intended to send a considerable number of emigrants to Texas in the fall. And they came. When he returned from his exploring expedition to New Braun- fels at the end of October, he found letters awaiting him with the information that 4000 emigrants were on their way to Texas and that a credit to the amount of $24,000 had been opened for him with a banker of New Orleans, in other words a credit of $6 for each emigrant. For this pittance the emigrants had to be transported from Gal- veston to the mainland, thence to New Braunfels (later to Fredericksburg) and given provisions until they had made their first crop. That the association's debt in Texas at that time was already more than the new credit opened
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for Meusebach, the directors in Mainz seemed to have either forgotten, or held it beneath their dignity to no- tice, or were under the impression that, having paid their debt of $24,000 with the amount sent to New Orleans, Meusebach would enjoy an unlimited credit.
Through private letters of Prince Solms, through his personal report, which he undoubtedly made after his re- turn to Germany, and through the detailed reports of von Meusebach, coupled with his urgent request for further funds, the Adelsverein must have been fully acquainted with the Verein's condition in Texas, its obligation and the cost of transportation and support of the immigrants. At the ridiculously low estimate of 10 cents for daily ra- tions to each person, this alone would have amounted to S+5.000 for 5000 people in three months, while the trans- portation from Galveston to New Braunfels would in- crease the expenses to about $40,000 more. Still it seems that Count Castell was laboring under the happy illu- sion that $2,000 would last indefinitely, while, in fact, the following amounts were necessary in Texas by the fall of 1845, viz. :
1. Forty-five thousand dollars for provisions for 5000 persons for three months.
2. Twenty-five thousand dollars for the payment of the floating debt.
3. Thirty-five thousand dollars for transportation of 4000 immigrants to New Braunfels.
4. Fifteen thousand dollars to build about 200 houses in the colony.
Total, $120,000. (Meusebach, "Answers to Interroga- tories.")
This would have placed the Verein's affairs in Texas on a sound business basis and the immigrants would have been saved many hardships and great distress. But in- stead there was only the paltry sum of $24,000 available,
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barely sufficient to liquidate the floating debt. (Meuse- bach, "Answers to Interrogatories.")
This sending of 4000 immigrants in the fall and winter of 1845 probably was the most inexcusable of the many blunders of the Adelsverein. Through Prince Solms, who had returned to Germany in August, 1845, Count Castell was made fully aware of the precarious condition of the colonists who had come to Texas in December, 1844, and the impossibility of reaching the grant lands for some time. Despite this undisputable fact, he sent over 4000 more immigrants who had to be housed and supported for an indefinite period.
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