Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 7, Number 1, January 1997 Page: 38
70 p. : ill., maps ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal
The ever-suspicious slaveholders, however, continued to regard their foreign-
born neighbors warily. Though there were relatively few persons of Czech descent in the
county, Germans had continued to constitute about one-third of county's non-slave
population throughout the decade. The Germans remained concentrated to the north and
northeast of Columbus, in and around Frelsburg and on the Bernardo Prairie. Their
influence was certainly felt in August 1860, when the San Bernard Post Office was renamed
New Mainz, after a city in Germany. Unlike their American born counterparts, who had
well-established agricultural methods and goals, the Germans had demonstrated a willing-
ness to experiment with their farms. Few seem to have been experienced farmers.
However, they apparently believed that persistent curiosity and intellectual investigation
could overcome their lack of experience. Already in the mid-1850s, Eduard Friedrich
Becker, who was trained as a physician in his homeland, had planted a vineyard and had,
either by careful work or extreme good fortune, begun cultivating a type of apple that could
flourish in Texas. His apple would become known, in his honor, as the Becker apple.
Becker himself, and many of his Colorado County neighbors, became early members of
the Cat Spring Agricultural Society, an organization of area German farmers formed on
June 7, 1856, who met frequently to discuss matters of agriculture for their mutual
edification.62
translation. Lesikar was said to be the newspaper's representative at Industry. The fourth representative, at New
Ulm, was C. Silar. Reymershoffer was listed as the paper's representative at Cat Spring, though by 1860 he
was living in Alleyton. It has been reported that to defer suspicion about his reading habits, Reymershoffer
"actually purchased a slave for nine hundred dollars." Perhaps so, but, if the tax rolls are to be believed, Rey-
mershoffer did not own a slave until 1864, four years after the controversy. Then, however, he owned only one,
which was valued at $200 (see Clinton Machann and James W. Mendl, Jr., Krasnd Amerika (Austin: Eakin
Press, 1983), pp. 216-217; Colorado County Tax Rolls, 1861, 1862, 1864 (Reymershoffer's name is absent from
the 1863 tax roll)).
Pisscacek, like nearly every other Czech name, is spelled in a variety of ways. The spelling used here
is taken from a signature on a document in Colorado County District Court Records, Civil Cause File No. 1271:
Frantisek Branecky v. Franz Prechectil.
62 Record of Appointment of Postmasters 1832-September 30, 1971, National Archives Microfilm
Publication M841, Roll 122; William Arthur Yates, "About the New Southern Fruit List," Texas Farm and
Ranch Journal, vol. 14, no. 27, July 6, 1895; Frank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans, ed. by Eugene
Campbell Barker and Ernest William Winkler (Chicago and New York: The American Historical Society,
1916), vol. 3, pp. 1366-1367; Descriptive Catalogue of Pearfield Nursery and Poultry Farm, Frelsburg,
Colorado County, Texas (Columbus: Colorado Citizen, n. d.), p. 12; Century of Agricultural Progress 1856-
1956 Minutes of the Cat Spring Agricultural Society (San Antonio, 1956). Exactly when Becker began success-
ful cultivation of his apple is in some doubt. The Pearfield Nursery catalogue cited above stated that the apple
was "imported from Germany about the year 1854." However, the catalogue was certainly published more than
forty years later, for the catalogue published by the nursery in 1894 states that "apples have been almost a
complete failure here" and makes no mention of the Becker apple (see Descriptive Catalogue of Pearfield
Nursery, Frelsburg, Colorado County, Texas (Columbus: Colorado Citizen, 1894), p. 13). Though it had been
developed virtually in his backyard, the proprietor of the Pearfield Nursery, Johann Friedrich Leyendecker, may
not have learned about the Becker apple until the Yates article was published, after which he may have learned
about its origins by interviewing members of the family. Yates described the Becker apple as "highly colored
38
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 7, Number 1, January 1997, periodical, January 1997; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151399/m1/38/?q=nesbitt%20memorial%20library%20journal: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.