| Notes |
- From John E. Campbell, correspondent, note of January 11,2009
Ernst Hermann Altgelt was the founder of Comfort, Texas whois documented athttp://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/AA/fal57.html and in "Die Nachkommen von Carl Philipp Altgeltzu Krefeld 1777 bis 1801 reformirter Prediger an dieserKirche (Lutheran minister of the church in Krefeld,Prussia)" which gives his complete lineage back to JohanAltgelt who was the mayor of Siegen, Germany in 1567!.
From John E. Campbell, correspondent, note of June 16, 2009
From Handbook of Texas History Online: ALTGELT, ERNST HERMANN (1832-1878).
Hermann Altgelt was born on July 17, 1832, at D on theRhine, the son of a privy counselor of that city. Uponcompleting military service, he immigrated at age twenty toNew Orleans and worked briefly for the cotton firm of JohnVles. In 1854 he led a surveying party into the HillCountryqv of Texas and laid out the town of Comfort onproperty owned by Vles. Soon, German freethinkers from NewBraunfels began to settle in the area and to develop thecommunal life that they wanted. The Comfort area, in spiteof floods and drought, offered lands for both farming andranching, as well as an abundance of timber and water.Altgelt began lumber and grist mills, but neither wassuccessful. He married another immigrant from theRhineland, Emma Murck (see ALTGELT, EMMA MURCK), in July1855 and thereafter took up the practice of law. Though hewas never a fire-eating supporter of secession, during theCivil War Altgelt aligned himself with the Southern cause.He traveled to Germany, allegedly as a result of strainedrelations with his fellow countrymen. After this trip hejoined the Confederate Army in time to participate in thebattle of Palmito Ranch after Lee's surrender.
He moved to San Antonio in 1866, continued his practice oflaw, and increased his real estate investments. Accordingto some sources, he built the first house on King WilliamStreet (see KING WILLIAM DISTRICT, SAN ANTONIO) in 1867 andwas thus accorded the privilege of naming the street,allegedly after Wilhelm I of Prussia. His neighborhoodrapidly attracted successful families of German and othernationalities. Altgelt built a more elaborate second homein 1877-78 at 226 King William Street. He died on March 28,1878, at the family ranch, Wassenberg, twenty-five milesfrom San Antonio. Altgelt had nine children, seven of whomgrew to maturity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frederick Charles Chabot, With theMakers of San Antonio (Yanaguana Society Publications 4,San Antonio, 1937). Henry B. Dielmann, trans., "EmmaAltgelt's Sketches of Life in Texas," SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly, January 1960. Glen E. Lich, TheGerman Texans (San Antonio: University of Texas Instituteof Texan Cultures, 1981). San Antonio Daily Herald, March29, 30, 1878.
Donald E. Everett
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From Handbook of Texas History Online: MAVERICK RANCH.
The Maverick Ranch, in Bexar County twenty-five milesnorthwest of San Antonio on the old SanAntonio-Fredericksburg road, comprises approximately 850acres of Hill Countryqv covered with nativeoaks, grasses, shrubs and madrona trees. A walled spring onthe site feeds a tributary of Leon Creek. A written accountreports an Indian raid in 1870 or 1871, and several earlyIndian campsites on the location have been documented. Theranch was established in 1869 when Ernst Hermann and Emma(Murck) Altgeltqqv built the main house ofFachwerk and limestone (see GERMAN VERNACULARARCHITECTURE), a portion of which burned in 1916, and aseparate kitchen with bedrooms, limestone schoolhouse, andlog blacksmith cabin. The ranch was their summer home, andMrs. Altgelt named it Wassenberg, a name used by subsequentowners. Both Altgelts are buried on the ranch. Another siteon the ranch includes the stone foundation of a house andhigh stone pens of George and Maria Obert's homestead. Inthe late 1860s cattle driven north were penned hereovernight, and Maria Obert served meals to the drovers. TheObert land was sold to Emma Altgelt in 1883, and later thewhole ranch was sold to Gustav Schmeltzer.
In January 1907 George Madison and Mary Vance Maverickbought the ranch for a summer home to escape the heat ofSan Antonio.
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Perspectives: Maverick Ranch, a Hill Countrybastion of preservation, conservation &tranquility By Bebe and Sissy Fenstermaker:
The limestone and fachwerk main house, a kitchen housebehind it, a small one-room stone schoolhouse (the firstschool in the area), the original barn, and a log cabinpre-dated the Mavericks. Earlier owners Ernst Hermann andEmma Murck Altgelt built these in the late 1860s and early70s. Ernst Altgelt founded Comfort, Texas and the KingWilliam area in San Antonio , and Emma Altgelt was ajournalist who left vivid memoirs of times at the Ranch.She also taught school in the little schoolhouse. Thefamily survived an Indian raid at the Ranch in 1870 duringwhich they stayed up all night making shot for the guns.The Altgelts loved the Ranch, living here for many years.Emma named it Wassenberg after a family place in Germany .Both Altgelts and a son are buried here in a familycemetery.
By Mrs. Ida Altgelt Schweppe: It took men and womenof strong will and hardy build to willingly forsake acivilized country and venture into unknown wilderness withno other aim than to enjoy freedom and the hope for abetter future.. Such a man was Ernst Hermann Altgelt, sonof a German official privy counsellor in Duesseldorf. Hisfather, a man highly honored in his community, had beenarmy chaplain and tutor of the two sons of the reigningprince of Prussia for several years. He sailed from Bremento Texas via New Orleans on a small sailboat in the year1852, settling on Cypress Creek, (then part of Bexar countyE Kerr and Kendall county were settled in 1856 and 1862).The town of Comfort was soon to be born. This is the story.--Frontier Times Magazine, Vol 13 # 11 August 1936
Name: Herrmann Altgelt
Residence: Kerr, Texas
Minor civil division: Comfort
Age: 22 years
Estimated birth year: 1838
Birth place: Prussia
Gender: Male
Page: 2
Family number: 12
Film number: 805299
Digital GS number: 4297441
Image number: 00142
NARA publication number: M653
Collection: 1860 United States Census
Author Schweppe, Ida Altgelt.
Title : Life of Ernst HermannAltgelt; founder of Comfort, Kendall County, Texas; abiographical sketch.
Originally built in 1722 to protect the mission (Alamo) andits surrounding colony, the Spanish Governor's Palacebecame the seat of the Tejas government and capitalbuilding of the Tejas (Texas) region in 1772 for theSpanish Province. Many laws of young Tejas were adoptedcreating local governments that governed this region untilthe Declaration of Texas Independence was signed, creatinga new government for Texas.
"The Governor's Palace is the only remaining example inTexas of an aristocratic early Spanish house. The keystoneabove the front doors, engraved with a double-headed eagle,a simplified version of the coat of arms of King FerdinandVI of Spain and the words, 'ano 1749 se acabo.'" (City ofSan Antonio Parks and Recreation Department)
Spanish Governor's Palace, at 105 Military Plaza in SanAntonio, was completed in 1749. The name, something of amisnomer, is traditional; the building was not the home ofthe Spanish governor but served as the residence andheadquarters for the local presidio captain. The one-storymasonry structure is built in the Spanish Colonial style;in the rear is a large patio. A keystone above the entrancebears the date of construction and the Hapsburg coat ofarms. After the end of Spanish sovereignty, thebuilding passed into private ownership. In the late 1860sit was purchased by E. Hermann Altgelt, founder of Comfortin Kendall County. He and his family lived there at varioustimes, and the property was held by his widow, Emma MurckAltgelt, until the early 1900s. Then the building fell intoa state of disrepair.
Three historic homesteads comprising an early settlementneighborhood, an unusual circumstance to be found withinone fenceline, ensured the 1979 listing of the entireMaverick Ranch-Fromme Farm as a district on the NationalRegister of Historic Places. There are prehistoric siteswithin the MkR-FF and the last Indian raid in Bexar Countyoccurred on here in 1870. Texas cattle drives of the1870-1880s coming up from South Texas passed through theMkR-FF along the creek, eventually joining the WesternCattle Trail. The cattle were overnighted in highrock-walled pens on the MkR-FF which still exist. The firstschoolhouse in the area is located here. Ernst Hermann andEmma Murck Altgelt, owners before the Mavericks, are buriedin an old cemetery on the Maverick Ranch.
Ernst Altgelt founded Comfort, Texas and developed the KingWilliam area of San Antonio (a National Register ofHistoric Places District). George Madison Maverick, whopurchased the Maverick Ranch in 1907, was a son of SamuelAugustus and Mary A. Maverick, early Texas pioneers. Hiswife Mary Vance Maverick was a daughter of John and RowenaVance of Castroville, owners of the Vance Store (now theLandmark Inn, a National Register of Historic Places siteowned by the State of Texas.). George Maverick, a lawyer,was known in San Antonio as the 'Father of Houston Street'for his successful efforts (1870-1890s) to build a viablecommercial area north of Commerce Street. Maverick workedwith his mother to shape her diaries into what is now aclassic Texana primary source, Memoirs of Mary A. Maverick.His daughter, Rena Maverick Green started legal aid in SanAntonio and the San Antonio Conservation Society. TheMaverick family named and gave Travis Park to the citizensof San Antonio.
From John E. Campbell, correspondent, note of September 21,2009
Ernst Ignaz Franz Seraph Kamill Coreth
Count Ernst von Coreth zu Corredo and family emigrated toTexas in 1846 aboard the "York", arriving in Galveston on 3Oct 1846, traveling first to Houston, and moving to andsettling in Comal Co. in Dec 1846. They apparently returnedto Austria in the period of 1848-1850, and then returned toTexas aboard the "Colonist", arriving from Hamburg atGalveston on 13 jun 1850.
Another one of the many German families who settled inTexas, the Coreth family, arrived in 1847 a year before theRevolution in Germany. At this time the head of the family,Earnst Coreth did not believe Germany to be a prosperousplace to start a family and his wife had given birth tothree babies in three years.50 Texas was home to theSociety for the Protection of German Immigrants whichoffered a new beginning for over 7,380 German settlers in1844, 1845, and 1846.51 Earnst Coreth knew members of theSociety "which may have seemed to offer a possible solutionfor a family expanding so rapidly in a land of diminishinghopes ."
The member s of the Coreth family were not involved inrevolutionary activities while in Germany, yet many knownas sociates of Earnst Coreth were cons idered radical. In1848 Ernst left Texas for Germany where he was to meet withan old friend who was a prominent Revolutionary.53 WhenEarnst returned to Texas in 1850, "rightly or wrongly,
Many of his fellow settlers looked on him as a'forty-eighter.' Actually he found himself in the situationof being neither a "gray" (basically conservative earlysettler) nor a "green" (liberal, intellectual late arrival)in the parlance of some American Germans."
However, Earnst Coreth's radical associations were enoughto draw attention from local authorities in Texas. TheCoreth family became close with a radical refugee of theRevolution, Dr. Earnst Kapp who in 1854 was electedpresident of the "Free-Society" in Sisterdale, Texas. Thisgroup had drawn negative attention when, under theleadership of Kapp they made a "public declaration that thepractice of slavery was incompatible with democraticprinciples." Possibly due to the negative backlashagainst Germans immigrants that ensued "Ernst Coreth sworeto renounce allegiance to all foreign lands andsovereigns," and in 1858 two of his sons, Rudolf and Carlfollowed suit.
German immigrants who lived in the North were able to provetheir loyalty to their new country by expressing theirnatural disapproval of slavery. Quite possibly for Germanimmigrants like Vicktor Bracht and the Coreth family, whosettled in the South they could express their loyalty bynot challenging the rights of others to do as they please.The Coreth family it seems tried to avoid trouble in Texasonce the war started by swearing allegiance to theConfederacy and offering themselves as volunteers for thearmy. While nearly every aspect of the war was discussed inthe letters between the Coreth family, the issue of slavery and secession were never mentioned. Like many otherGerman immigrants in the South, they very likely heldideals that were in conflict with the goals of theConfederacy yet the Coreth family chose to stay and fightin the South.
Among German immigrants living in Texas "the 'silentmajority' were loyal to Texas, whatever misgivings they mayhave had about its seceding from the Union. The Corethsevidently belonged to this group and are, therefore, to adegree representative."
Once the Civil War arrived in Texas the oldest two Corethsons enlisted in the Confederate army, despite theseemingly radical leanings of the family. The oldest son,Carl Coreth wrote to his brother Rudolph: Father writes youwant to present yourself if the militia is called up. Iwill do it too if necessary. There are people herewho say they would not leave, they had not started thething, etc. I felt duty bound to do it though..
Germans who immigrated to the South in the revolutionaryyears of the late 1840's brought with them their ownpersonal experience of revolution that shaped the differentways in which they viewed the oncoming Civil War and theinstitutions of the South. The Coreth family was among themajority of German immigrants in Texas who at one pointheld European liberal ideals, yet remained silent in orderto avoid persecution.
21 Sep 2009
From John E. Campbell, correspondent, note of July 5, 2009
I have attached a file that documents the massive outfluxof Altgelts from the German states to Texas, New York, and,most especially, to Buenos Aires in the latter halfof the 19th century. This ocurred as a directresult of the failure of the liberals to carry the day inthe revolutions of 1848. My g-g-grandfather,Ernst Hermann Altgelt was one of those liberal thinkers whosought relief from the oppressions of the aristocracy andthe established church.
COMFORT, TEXAS. Comfort, the second largest town in KendallCounty, is located at the junction of State Highway 27,U.S. Highway 87, and Interstate Highway 10, sixteen milesnorthwest of Boerne on the county's western edge. The townwas laid out near the site of an Indian village in 1854 byErnst Hermann Altgelt,qv though its history goesback to a group of Germans from New Braunfels that settledin 1852 along the banks of the Cypress Creek above itsconfluence with the Guadalupe River. Freemasons,freethinkers, and political activists, middle-class Germanfamilies, and liberals from Bettina and Sisterdale settledthe area. Townsmen organized the community alongcooperative lines and steadfastly opposed formal localgovernment. Comfort opened a school shortly after itsfounding, but not until 1892 was a church built.
From The Handbook of Texas Online. [3, 4]
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1832 - 1878 (46 years)
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