[I have written this sketch mainly from one personal conversation with Mr. Charles Adolphus Sterne, from letters, written in compliance with my request, by him and his sister, Mrs. Rosine Ryan 11; and from the subject's general reputation; but partly from works on Texas history.—W. P. Z.]
Adolphus Sterne was born in Cologne, Germany, in January, 1800. In 1824 he came from Germany, by way of New Orleans, Louisiana, to Nacogdoches, Texas, and settled there as a merchant. He purchased his supplies in New Orleans, shipped them on steamboats up the Mississippi and Red rivers to Natchitoches, and had them hauled thence on wagons to Nacogdoches. He resided at Nacogdoches during the remainder of his life.
Here, in spite of his German antecedents, Mr. Sterne was regarded as an American. The Mexican population so regarded all white people, except those speaking the Spanish language. Mr. Sterne had a good English education and spoke the English language plainly, and he was not easily distinguishable from nativeborn Americans. His instinctive preference was for his own race; and hence, when differences arose between the Americans and the Mexicans, his sympathies were with the former.
In 1826 Mr. Sterne became identified with the local political party known as the “Fredonians.” His service was to purchase munitions of war in New Orleans, and smuggle them to his friends in Texas. He packed gun-flints, powder, and lead, into bales of dry-goods and barrels of coffee, and thus sent them to Nacogdoches, where he afterwards delivered them to Benjamin Edwards and Martin Palmer. But he was watched by the secret agents of the Mexican consul at New Orleans. They discovered his device, and reported it to the consul, and he reported it to his Government and to Norris, the Anti-Fredonian alcalde at Nacogdoches.
He was one of the twenty Fredonians captured by Ahumada's troops in January, 1827; and, on account of his smuggling munitions of war to the enemy, Ahumada excepted him from his compliance with Austin's request to release his prisoners. He was tried by a military court, convicted of treason, and condemned to be shot; but his execution was necessarily delayed till his sentence could be sent to Saltillo, approved by the military department commander, General Teran, and returned. While awaiting Teran's reply, he was chained and confined in the cuartel. But the charge against him had not been positively proven, and he entertained a bright hope of being pardoned, which was realized.
It has often been said that no Free Mason can be lawfully punished for crime if the power of conviction or pardon rests in one or more members of the fraternity. All intelligent Free Masons know this to be false; but, in cases of purely political offenses, Masonry has frequently been the means of saving life. Mr. Sterne being a Mason of high degree, his Masonic friends in New Orleans interceded for him through the agency of General Teran, who was also a Mason of high rank, and Teran procured his pardon. But his liberation was on parole not again to bear arms against the Mexican government, nor to aid its enemies.
Aware of the efforts of his friends in New Orleans to procure his pardon, and confident of their success, Mr. Sterne endured his imprisonment, not only patiently, but also cheerfully. An interesting incident illustrates his confidence of final release. Being a man of pleasant manners, he enjoyed the friendship of his guards; and his cheerful deportment satisfied them that he would not try to escape, but that he preferred patiently to await the approval or disapproval of his sentence. Hence they gave to him as much liberty as they could, and became, in fact, careless. He purposely wore loose boots, which he could easily draw off and on his feet, and his chain was locked around one of them. One evening his guards locked the doors of his room, and went to a fandango. Left alone, he drew the boot off his chained leg, and the chain with it. Then he raised a sash, went out through a window, proceeded to his store, dressed himself properly, and made his way also to the fandango. There he found his guards, who were much startled by his arrival; but he and they promised not to inform against each other, and all were easy. One of his friends, in surprise, said to him, “Why, Sterne, how came you here?” “I walked,” was his reply. “But why are you here?” “To dance, of course.”
And dance he did. In good time, he returned to his store, resumed his prison garb, went back to his prison, reëntered it through the window, and drew on his boot and the chain with it. When his guards returned, they found him as they had left him.
If the Mexican officers ever learned of this adventure, they apparently never noticed it.
In 1832 Mr. Sterne was with the Texians 12 in the battle of Nacogdoches, and in pursuit of the Mexicans to and across the Angelina river; but, being under parole, he did not use a gun. Yet he piloted the troops, informed them concerning the places of Mexican rendezvous, and carried water to them. Fortunately for him, the Texians were victorious.
In 1835, in New Orleans, Mr. Sterne raised the company called the “New Orleans Grays,” which assisted Colonels Milam and Johnson in capturing Bexar. Among the men of that company were Thomas F. Lubbock, Henry S. Fisher, Thomas William Ward, John D. McLeod, and other men distinguished in Texas history. 13
In 1839 Adolphus Sterne was captain of a company of volunteers in the command of General Douglass, in the Cherokee war, which company he commanded in the battle of Neches, on July 16th, 1839. In that battle, which continued during an hour and a half or two hours, the Cherokees were defeated with a loss of about one hundred men, killed and wounded. The forces of the Texians were estimated at 500, and those of the Indians at 800, the latter not all Cherokees. Among the slain of the Cherokees was their grand chief Bowls. The loss of the Texians was only five killed, and twenty-seven wounded. 14 In this battle Captain Sterne was slightly wounded. It virtually closed our war with the Cherokees, as they no longer occupied Texas soil, and their subsequent hostilities were perpetrated only on incursions into our country.
Mr. Sterne at different times filled the civil offices of justice of the peace, county commissioner, post master, and state senator. He also held a commission (yet in possession of his family) signed by Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas, appointing him on the presidential staff, with the rank of major. He was an original member of the Grand Lodge of Texas, A. F. &A. M. He helped to organize it, on December 20th, 1837, and was then elected deputy grand master. 15
As to Mr. Sterne's religion, he was identified with the Roman Catholic Church, his mother and his wife both being devoted members thereof.
My father, Abraham Zuber, became acquainted with Adolphus Sterne in 1827, and was ever afterward his warm personal friend. I myself never saw him; but I have gathered the substance of the following description of his character from what I have heard my father and other friends say of him.
In address and conversation, he was courteous, social, cheerful, and refined. In temper, he was mild; in principle, pure; in purpose, firm; in patriotism, devoted; in statement, candid; in business, honorable; in friendship, faithful. Of course, he was beloved and honored by those who were so fortunate as to know him personally.
Captain Sterne died in New Orleans, in March, 1852, at the age of fifty-two years, and about two months. In April of the same year, his remains were removed to his home at Nacogdoches, and there buried.
Captain Sterne was blessed with a model wife. Mrs. Eva Catherine Rosine Sterne, née Ruff, was born at Eslenger, kingdom of Wurtemberg, Germany, July 23d, 1809. Of the date of her immigration to America, I have no account. Her marriage to Adolphus Sterne occurred at Natchitoches, Louisiana, June 2d, 1828, when she was not quite nineteen years old. Thenceforth her home was in Nacogdoches, till 1859. Mrs. Sterne was a Christian lady, a devoted Catholic, and distinguished for her plainness, sociability, conscientiousness, discretion, and firmness; for devotion to her husband and children, and to their friends; also for her hospitality, charity, and other Christian virtues. Like her husband, she was an American and a patriot. Her home in Nacogdoches was the rendezvous of the women and children of the surrounding country, during the perilous times when the men were on duty and under arms.
The published report of the unveiling of the Burnet-Sherman monument, at Lake View Cemetery, Galveston Island, on March 2, 1894, in a tribute to Mrs. Rosine Ryan, says of Mrs. Sterne,—
“Mrs. Ryan's mother was god-mother to General Houston, who presented her with a valuable set of jewelry, which she afterward wore at the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.”
In compliance with my request, Mrs. Ryan kindly explained this statement to me as follows: Recognizing the requirement of the constitution and laws of Mexico, that a prerequisite to citizenship and to holding office was to support the Roman Catholic Church, General Sam Houston was baptized into that church; and had Mrs. Sterne for his sponsor. Afterward, as is well known, General Houston, with the other members of the Convention, signed the Declaration of Independence, at Washington-on-the-Brazos, on the second day of March, 1836, which was his own birthday. Later he sent to Mrs. Sterne a handsome set of jewelry, with the request that she would wear it on each succeeding anniversary of that day. She did so till bereavement and sorrow came, when she laid the jewels aside. But, at the laying of the corner-stone of the capitol at Austin, at which she was present, on March 2, 1886, that being the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration, her regard for the two events, occurring just fifty years apart, induced her again to wear them on that day.
In 1859 Mrs. Sterne left Nacogdoches, where she had resided during about thirty-one years, and settled in Austin. Thence, in 1874 or 1875, she removed with her daughter, Mrs. Ryan, to Houston, which was her last earthly home.
Mrs. Sterne's daughter, Mrs. Ryan, on May 4th, 1895, wrote of her: “Mrs. Sterne is, at this date, living in Houston, Texas, and, at the good old age of eighty-six years, is well—as bright as when a young woman, fleeing on horseback with her babies from the Mexicans, in the troublous days of the thirties.”
The minutes of the Texas Veteran Association for 1896 shewed that this worthy widow of a worthy Texas veteran yet lived, but the minutes for 1897 shewed that she was dead.
Captain and Mrs. Sterne had seven children, whose names, with the addresses of those yet alive, are as follows:
1.Mrs. Eva Helena Eugenia Barrett, widow of the late Thomas C. Barrett, Austin, Texas.
2.Charles Adolphus Sterne, Palestine, Texas.
3.Joseph Amador Sterne, deceased.
4.William Logan Sterne, deceased.
5.Placide Rusk Sterne, New York City.
6.Mrs. Laura Theresa Cave, deceased. Her husband, Major E. W. Cave, resides in Houston, Texas.
7.Mrs. Rosine Ryan, widow of the late William Aurelius Ryan, Houston, Texas.
12. [Mr. Zuber, like perhaps most of the Texas veterans, prefers this spelling.—Editor Quarterly.]
13. See Thrall's History of Texas, p. 220, note.
14. See Bancroft's North Mexican States and Texas, II, pp. 323, 324.
15. See Sayles' Masonic Jurisprudence of Texas, 4th Ed. pp. 218-19.
How to cite:
Zuber, W. P., "CAPTAIN ADOLPHUS STERNE ", Volume 002, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 211 - 216. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v002/n3/article_2.html
[Accessed Mon Dec 1 17:54:26 CST 2008]
