The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 65, July 1961 - April, 1962 Page: 157

THE SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
VOL. XLV OCTOBER, 1961 No. 2
lisabet Y'b,, Scilptor
HENRY B. DIELMANN
SOMETIME IN JANUARY OR FEBRUARY OF 1873 there appeared
at the home of Robert Leisewitz at Brenham, in Washing-
ton County, Texas, a rather striking looking woman about
forty years of age. Leisewitz belonged to the group of German
immigrants who had settled in Washington County and had
made it into one of the most prosperous agricultural counties of
Texas at that time. The visitor had come from Thomasville,
Georgia, where she and her family had passed two unsuccessful
years at farming. Now they were among the thousands who were
migrating from the Old South after the disastrous War Between
the States to settle in Texas where land was plentiful and cheap.
The woman who visited Robert Leisewitz was not the usual
type of immigrant. Her looks and demeanor clearly indicated
that fact. Leisewitz, who was an experienced business man, soon
realized that his visitor was looking for something more than a
mere farm upon which she intended to make a living. No, she
undoubtedly had bigger ideas and rather ambitious ones. The
moment he realized the situation, the picture of Liendo Plan-
tation flashed into his mind. He, therefore, promptly took his
inquirer to Liendo near Hempstead and showed her the elaborate
mansion of Colonel Leonard Waller Groce, then vacant and only
a shadow of its ante-bellum glory. After his visitor had gone
through the great hall of the mansion and had stepped out upon
the veranda and looked out over the landscape, she spread out
her arms and exclaimed, "Here is where I shall live and die."
The prospective purchaser of the eleven hundred-acre Liendo
Plantation introduced herself as Elisabet Ney. On March 4,
1873, a contract was entered into between one Edmund Duncan