The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 20, July 1916 - April, 1917 Page: 28

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The Southwestern Historical Quarterly

THE GERMAN SETTLERS OF 1VILLHEIM BEFORE THE
CIVIL WAR
ADALBERT REGENBRECHT
[The earliest German immigrants in Texas located in what is
now Austin County. Friedrich Ernst and Charles Fordtran set-
tled in 1831 where Industry now is. The families of Marcus
Amsler, Ludwig Anton Sigmund von Roeder and Robert J. and
Louis Kleberg settled in 1834 where Cat Spring now is. The
reports these families sent to their former homes caused others
to follow. Some of the experiences of these pioneers are re-
counted in THE QUARTEITY, I, 297-302; II, 170-73 and 227-32.
Millheim was an offshoot of the settlement at Cat Spring.
The present article was prepared in response to a request of
The Editors. It is printed as written, for the author died
(March 29, 1916) very soon after it had been completed. He was
in his eighty-fifth year, and, perhaps, the last survivor in Aus-
tin County of die Lateiner, those cultured, genial spirits who
found it much easier to cultivate music and song and literature
than corn and cotton. Ubi libertas, ibi patria.]
After the year 1848 several thousand highly educated Germans
emigrated from Germany for various reasons, but immigrated to
the United States from love of freedom. Not all of them went
to the Northern States, but quite a number went to Austin
County and other parts of Texas. My father was a professor of
jurisprudence and was elected rector magnificus of the Univer-
sity of Breslau. As a young man he volunteered in the war of
1813 to 1815 and was decorated for bravery in the battle of
Kulm with the iron cross and a Russian order. He was wealthy.
In the year 1848 I was seventeen years old and a schoolboy.
Therefore, I did not participate in the revolution, but took a
lively interest in it. Reading the constitutions of the free coun-
tries I preferred the constitution of the United States. After
having studied jurisprudence for several years and after the
deaths of my parents I emigrated in company with a Texan
farmer, who had married a second cousin of mine and returned

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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 20, July 1916 - April, 1917, periodical, 1917; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101070/m1/34/ocr/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.

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