The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, July 1946 - April, 1947 Page: 78
582 p. : ill. (some col.), maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
one immigrant wagons under the command of Nicolaus Zink
forded the river at the same place and halted on the east bank
of Comal Creek where the Catholic church now stands. Thus
on March 21, 1845, the beginnings of the settlement of New
Braunfels, named in honor of Prince Solms's estate Braunfels
on the Lahn River, a tributary of the Rhine, were made.
It is not possible to list with any certainty the names of all
of those who reached New Braunfels on March 21, 1845. The
archives of the Adelsverein" do not reveal their names, although
in general these archives give rather complete information on
every phase of the colonization project. The nearest complete
list is contained in the first volume of records of the First
Protestant Church of New Braunfels. Even if it were possible
to ascertain the names of all of these first arrivals, it would
certainly be unfair to the other half of the immigrants, who
arrived at the new settlement in May and July, 1845, respec-
tively, to claim the glory of founding New Braunfels for the
first arrivals. There simply were not enough wagons and carts
to take all of the settlers to New Braunfels in one group. The
whole group entitled to the honor of founding New Braunfels
-those who arrived on March 21, 1845, and the two groups of
May and July-amounted, all in all, to about four hundred and
fifty men, women, and children.3
The second group of immigrants who arrived on the banks of
the Guadalupe opposite the new settlement on May 5, 1845,
had an experience that must not have made them feel any too
secure about their own safety on this frontier in Texas. During
12These archives were placed in the castle of the Prince of Solms-Braun-
fels. In 1932 about two-fifths of a total of approximately 45,000 pages of
manuscripts in these archives were photostated for the Library of Congress.
These photostats were subsequently transcribed into seventy typewritten
volumes for the library of The University of Texas under a project spon-
sored by the Bureau of Research in the Social Sciences. Subsequent refer-
ences will be made as Solms-Braunfels Archiv:
3aThe problem of determining who belonged to this whole group is com-
plicated by the fact that some of the immigrants were to be stationed at
Carlshafen (Indianola) and two inland camp sites to look after the Adels-
verein's interests, as Prince Solms stated in his sixth report from Port
Lavaca on December 23, 1844, but their names are not revealed. (See
"Berichte" in Kalender, 43-44.) Others remained at Galveston or else
moved inland to Houston or to some of the German communities farther
inland, such as Industry, Cat Spring, Frelsburg, and Biegel. (See W. A.
Trenckmann, Austin County, passim; F. Lotto, Fayette County, 376;
Biesele, German Settlements in Texas, 42-65.) Then, too, there were some
Germans in Galveston and on Cummins Creek east of La Grange in Fayette
County who expressed a desire to Prince Solms to become colonists under
him. (See "Berichte" in Kalender, 62.)
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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/m1/94/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.