The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, July 1946 - April, 1947 Page: 75
582 p. : ill. (some col.), maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Sarly (imes i# Vew /raudels
and Coma/ CouHtI
RUDOLPH L. BIESELE
ON MARCH 21, 1945, one hundred years had passed since a
small band of about two hundred immigrants from several
German duchies and principalities encamped on the right or
east bank of Comal Creek in present-day Comal County and
laid the foundations of what is today the city of New Braunfels.
It was Good Friday, a day of much meaning to all of that band
of settlers who came to Texas to found homes and to establish
economic security for themselves. They came under the auspices
of the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in
Texas, generally known to the settlers as the Mainzer Adels-
verein or, more briefly still, as the Adelsverein,' by which name
reference will be made to it in this account.
The leader of this small band of settlers, somewhat less than
half the number which the Adelsverein had brought to Texas
by the end of the year 1844, was Prince Carl of Solms-Braun-
fels, the first commissioner-general of the Adelsverein. Sub-
ordinate to Prince Solms as officials of the Adelsverein in Texas
were Jean J. von Coll as bookkeeper, Nicolaus Zink as engineer,
and Dr. Theodor Koester as physician. Prince Solms had been
in Texas since July 1, 1844, and had in company with Alexander
Bourgeois, the Adelsverein's colonial director, made an extended
horseback trip over Southwest Texas for the purpose of getting
everything in readiness for receiving the immigrants whom the
Adelsverein was planning to send to Texas later that fall. On
this trip he decided that it was impractical for the Adelsverein
to use the lands of the Bourgeois-Ducos grant2 because the
1The Adelsverein, known officially in Germany as Verein zum Schutze
deutscher Einwanderer in Texas, was organized at Biebrich on the Rhine in
1842; and after its reorganization on March 25, 1844, at Mainz it consisted
of twenty-four German noblemen of various ranks and Alexander Bourgeois
d'Orvanne, a Frenchman, who was made colonial director. For an extended
treatment of the founding of this colonization company and of its coloniz-
ing activities, see Rudolph Leopold Biesele, The History of the German
Settlements in Texas, 1881-1861, pp. 66-160. This work will subsequently
be cited as German Settlements in Texas.
2Alexander Bourgeois and Armand Ducos received a colonization contract
from President Sam Houston on June 3, 1842, for a tract of land on the
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, July 1946 - April, 1947, periodical, 1947; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101117/m1/91/?rotate=270: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.