[The following is a continuation of the narrative published in The Quarterly for April, 1898, and has been written on the same general plan. —Rudolph Kleberg, Jr.]
Upon returning home, everybody went peacefully to work once more. There was scarcely any crime; but times were very hard. Nearly all the cattle in the country had either been stolen by the Mexicans or were strayed and could not be found. A pig and one lame old ox constituted our entire live stock. Our house had been partly consumed by fire, and our crop of corn and cotton was, of course, totally destroyed. Our company went into partnership with Bosticks and planted a field. The work of splitting rails and building fences was very hard, since all of us had chills and fevers.
There was no ready money in the country; at any rate, we had none of it; and, what was worse, were in want of provisions. I sold some fine linen table cloth which I had brought from Germany for rice and flour. Six pounds of flour or rice could be obtained for one dollar. We could not afford to buy meal, we had no corn, and had to substitute hard curd for bread. It was with great difficulty that the farmers obtained seed-corn. My husband travelled two days and a night to buy seed-corn from a farmer living on the Colorado who had succeeded in saving his corn by putting it in an underground cistern. It was here that all our neighbors got their corn, paying $5.00 per bushel. My husband bought a big work-horse for a labor of land.
The first store that did business after the war stood near the present site of Bellville. San Felipe was rebuilt soon afterwards.
In 1837, my husband was made associate commissioner of the Board of Land Commissioners, and in 1838 he was made president of that body by J. P. Borden, Superintendent of the Land Office. Upon his return from Houston he poured a number of bright silver dollars into my lap. This was the first money I had seen since the outbreak of the war. Later he was commissioned justice of the peace by President Lamar, when he reunited in marriage great numbers of people who had been married under the Mexican government. By President Houston he was appointed chief justice of Austin county, and had his office at San Felipe. There was considerable legal business at this early time; and, while in the main things were pretty quiet, yet when litigation began in earnest, quarrels and shooting- scrapes were of frequent occurrence. One farmer, having been sued for marking his neighbor's pigs, killed his accuser. Everybody carried his rifle wherever he went, even if it was only to hunt his horses. At elections every one was supplied with fire-arms.
My husband used to tell many amusing anecdotes of the time when he was justice. The principal lawyers at this time in San Felipe were General Portes, R. M. Williamson (Three-Legged Willie), Rivers, and Col. Shepard, the father of Judge Seth Shepard. At the house where they boarded they were much annoyed by their landlady's partiality. It seemed to them that she reserved all the delicacies for her own table, and fed them on but ordinary fare. Williamson one day determined to put a stop to this. Keeping on his big coat, and spreading it out as far as possible, he placed himself in front of the ladies and entertained them in the pleasantest way, while Rivers and Portes exchanged the dishes.
A trifling fellow was in the habit of coming to San Felipe, getting on a spree for a week at a time, making himself a general nuisance, and leaving his family, who lived at some distance in the country, to shift as best they could. One day a “kangaroo” court was organized. General Portes, acting as sheriff, arrested the fellow, while Williamson performed the duties of prosecuting attorney. The latter made one of his characteristic orations while General Portes was engaged in whetting a big machete in the most menacing manner. About this time the fellow's horse was brought up, completely saddled; his counsel gave him a significant wink, and the defendant jumped on him and never returned to San Felipe.
The main road from Houston to Austin passed right in front of our house. There was constant travel, and immigrants passed almost daily. Every one who had a team and had spare time did some “teamstering,” for this occupation brought the quickest ready money. Oxen were used for this purpose almost exclusively, a wagon sometimes having as many as five yokes. My husband also engaged in raising tobacco and making cigars, which he sold in Houston at high prices; and people came from all around to his house to buy it. There was then no duty upon this article.
I can remember very well how the German colonists who settled New Braunfels and Fredericksburg passed our home. About one or two families came by each day. They had a hard time. Many fell sick on the road and died. Prince Solms-Braunfels came to our house one day and wanted me to make coffee for him. He was attended by a number of persons on horseback, and was dressed like a German officer. He impressed me as a conceited fool. He was unwilling to eat at the same table with other people—a manner of conduct which, I fancy, did not serve to raise him in the estimation of the American farmers. Messrs. Von Gleichen and Von Meusebach, who were connected with the colony, and stopped in our house, were very pleasant gentlement, indeed. They asked me whether it were not desirable that cultivated German families should come. I replied that they would have a hard time.
Most people camped. Only single men, who came to prospect—there were a great many of them, however—stayed at the taverns and boarding houses.
Of German farmers in our neighborhood there were very few. There was the settlement of Oldenburgers, 35 who had come with us, on Cummins Creek; Mr. Ernst's and Mr. Fortrandt's farms at Industry; and Mr. Charles Amsler, a Swiss, who had come with our relatives six months before us, lived within a few miles. Messrs. Lindheimer, Hollien, Lebermann, and Nuthen were with Col. Morgan's company in Galveston, having come from New Orleans. Later Lindheimer came to Cat Spring and lived with us for quite a while. Being a naturalist, he made a specialty of botany, in which science he did the pioneer work in Texas. He sent his specimens to Berlin, and many of the new plants he found received his name. He lived in a miserable little hut, which was crammed full of specimens of animals and plants. On his little Mexican cart he would sally forth on excursions into the wilds of the Brazos bottom, returning with a wealth of new and strange forms of plants and animals. 36 He was a fine gentleman and a splendid scholar. In his later years he published the New Braunfelser Zeitung.
I also remember that Pastor Ehrenberg, who escaped from the massacre at Goliad and fought with great valor in the battle of San Jacinto, came to our house and baptized my children.
Of course, I came into contact with the outside world very little. I was busy with my household, and had a great deal of work on my hands; but I attended a few social gatherings. I have already mentioned the little dance in our house in Harrisburg, and I ought to have mentioned in that connection the great ball given by the people of Harrisburg on the occasion of the capture of the old fort at Anahuac in 1835. In the early forties, I remember attending a big dance and barbecue at San Felipe on the anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto. People came from a radius of forty miles. In the open air were two big tables, one covered with barbecued meat and the other laden with cake. The dance was held in the big hall of the court house, which accommodated about one hundred couples. Reels and squares were the favorite dances, and I was much impressed by the loud prompting, which is not customary in Germany.
Col. Pettus and Capt. John York, who had moved to De Witt county two years before, persuaded us to go west, where we settled in 1847. The country was very thinly settled, and was not entirely free from Indians. Capt. York and several others were killed in a fight on the Escondida, in which my husband participated. Our neighbors were Pettus, York, Scott, Bell, and my brother, Albrecht von Roeder. They were a fine lot of people—brave, reliable, and true. This community built the first school house on the twelvemile Coletto, where Rigley, an Englishman, was the first teacher. There was no postal system to speak of, and letters were carried by private parties as opportunity afforded.
Our home was the meeting place of many young, educated Germans, who, driven out by the revolutions of 1848, hoped to find in Texas the land of freedom. Germans of all classes began to come a little later, and thus the stream continued until the Civil war.
R. D. Stolje and wife, (probably Stoehlke)
—Reinerman and wife
—Bartels
—Damke
William Vrels (at the storming of San Antonio)
John Hennike
George Herder (in the battle of San Jacinto)
36. One has only to turn the pages of Coulter's Botany of Western Texas to satify one's mind as to the magnitude of his work.—R. K., Jr.
How to cite:
Kleberg, Rosa, "EARLY EXPERIENCES IN TEXAS. II ", Volume 002, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 170 - 173. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v002/n2/article_6.html
[Accessed Mon Dec 1 18:41:12 CST 2008]
