By Myra Lee Adams Goff

Do you know where the Klappenbach House is located? From Landa St., turn onto Fredericksburg Rd. and go straight until you get to a hill, Klappenbach Hill. The house on the left is the Klappenbach property. The story of the Klappenbach family is indeed interesting.

The story begins in Sorenbohm, Germany, where in the 1820’s, Johann Heinrich Voelcker was called to be an evangelical Lutheran preacher. He was married to Caroline Wilhelmine Wirth and they had four children, Friedrich, Julius, Franciska, and Eugen Voelcker. In1834 their oldest son, Friedrich, died and then two years later Rev. Voelcker died, possibly of smallpox from parishioners he was tending. The young mother was left alone with three children. She moved to Anklam, a seaport town in far North Germany near the Baltic Sea. Here she eventually married Georg Jochim Jacob Friedrich A. Klappenbach.

Klappenbach, born in 1810 in Lenzen, had studied “Legal Science” at the University of Griefswald. While there he joined a radical reform protest movement, was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison. A year passed and his sentence was commuted. Friends who were in this movement said that Georg was nicknamed “Rebell” and the group was a democratic reform group that met at a pub to drink beer and make speeches. This movement eventually led to the later revolution of 1848 in Germany.

After his arrest, Georg moved to Anklam. He took several municipal jobs. Apparently the political situation was in chaos because the mayor’s position was perpetually vacant. Klappenbach ran for mayor and won, but that didn’t end the discord.

Now here’s a familiar name: John O. Meusebach (as he was later called in Texas) was called on to help sort out the reforms in Anklam and a bond grew between the two men. This friendship ultimately led to Klappenbach’s coming to Texas.

In Anklam Klappenbach married the widow Voelcker, and together they produced a child, Rosa, born in 1840 who died in 1842. Another child, Bruno, was born in 1845.

The Klappenbachs were familiar with the fact that Meusebach emigrated to Texas and Julius Voelcker, Caroline’s oldest living son, emigrated first. Meanwhile the Adelsverein contacted Georg offering him free passage and land in New Braunfels if he would come as an assistant to John Meusebach. He accepted the offer in 1846 and the family pulled up stakes and moved to Texas.

Although Klappenbach received the traditional half acre lot in town (on the corner of Seguin Ave. and Garden St.) he also claimed 50 more acres. This property was bounded by Landa St., which was then called County Road, up Fredericksburg Rd., adjacent to the Balcones Escarpment, and down Parkview Blvd.

On this property in 1846 the Klappenbachs buried Caroline’s child, Franciska Voelcker, 22 years of age. Dr. Ferdinand Roemer describes the funeral in this manner: “According to a North American custom in the rural districts, all people in the funeral procession were mounted (on horses) which appeared unusual ….” The burial was on the property of the stepfather, beside the springs of the Comal, in view of the river and shaded by forest trees.

Stepson Eugen Voelcker constructed the dog-trot style homestead for the Klappenbachs near the springs. He had been trained in carpentry and home building in Anklam. Three feet thick walls of native fieldstone rubble with mortar made of caliche and straw were then covered with stucco. The roof is supported by two unjointed cypress beams the length of the house. The floors are cedar.

Klappenbach farmed and ranched on this property. He used the “GK” brand. He didn’t give up his interest in politics, being elected mayor in 1851 and then on the school board of the NB Academy. He was elected chief justice of Comal County in 1861.

Carl and Augusta Buehler bought the property from Klappenbach in 1881. It was Buehler that terraced the property next to the hill below the house. Buehler was known for his horticulture and the soil was so rich, and the area so perfect for growing fruits and vegetables, that even today many plants spring forth on their own – herbs such as horehound and mustang grapevines.

The most unusual trees are the anaqua trees. They are an old variety that grow close to water (aqua is water). There are many in Landa Park. About this time of year these trees are covered with tiny fragrant flowers that soon turn into berries. Indians concocted a dried food call pemmican. The berries of the anaqua were mixed with dried venison and made into paste for easy carriage.

Buehler’s grandson, Edward Penshorn, took ownership of the farm and then Melvin and Juanita Johnson bought it in the 1930’s. Finally the present owners, Tim and Elisabet Barker, bought the remaining 3 1/2 acres in 1984. Barker is a Master Gardener who grows magnificent flowers on the five terraces. Two small historic buildings have been moved on to the property blending in with the historic dog-trot house still in existence.

Much of the information for this article column has been collected from the Sophienburg Archives. There is a collection of about 450 family books, one of which is “Fink, Voelcker, and Klappenbach Families” by Albert Henry Fink. These family books are a real plus for researchers!

Georg Jochim Jacob Friedrich A. Klappenbach, 1860s

By Myra Lee Goff

What is under about 100 feet of water in Canyon Lake? Or better still, what would still be there if the lake had not been constructed?

I started looking and found out: ranch land, farm land, trees, cemeteries, Guadalupe River and the site of two very small communities, Hancock and Cranes Mill.

Plans for the improvement of the Guadalupe River Water Shed by building a dam go as far back as 1929. A survey was made in 1935 and was authorized 10 years later. Four sites were considered, with the one chosen 21 miles from New Braunfels. Construction began in 1960, and by 1964 when the gates were finally closed, the lake began to fill.

With a shoreline of 80 miles, reservoir storage was estimated at 740,900 acre feet. Total cost of the project was around $20.2 million, with about $3 million more than projected due to road work and north and south access roads (source: Alton Rahe’s “History of Sattler and Mountain Valley School”).

Some 500,000 cubic yards of material were hauled to the dam site out of a rock quarry owned by Roland and Gladys Erben. In a Reflections tape made for the Sophienburg, they said holes were drilled with air hammers. The holes were filled with ammonium nitrate and set off with a dynamite charge, causing 5,000 pounds of rock blasting each time.

Now under water, the small settlement of Hancock would be there. It was named after the land’s original owner, John Hancock, who in 1851 was granted the land on the north bank of the Guadalupe River.

Eventually, Frank Guenther acquired the land and established a store and opened a Post Office in 1916. This Post Office was closed in 1934 and, according to Oscar Haas, the population of Hancock in 1940 was 10.

Frank Guenther was one of the children of Christian Guenther, one of the orphans raised by the Ervendbergs at the Weisenhaus (orphanage). Christian Guenther came from Germany with his parents and his three siblings in 1845. His mother and two siblings died aboard ship and his father died in Texas in 1847, leaving 8-year-old Christian as an orphan. As an adult, Christian settled in Sattler, raised a family of six children, one of which was Frank Guenther (source: Brenda Anderson Lindeman’s “Spring Branch”).

The other community under Canyon Lake would be Cranes Mill. James Crain established a cypress shingle mill in the 1850s along the Guadalupe. Notice the spelling which changed from “Crain” to “Crane” after the Civil War.

My neighbor Olive Marcelle Hofheinz, is the g-granddaughter of a very well-known man in the Cranes Mill area, the Rev. August Engel. Engel arrived in Texas in 1846 and came to New Braunfels where he married his wife and then moved to the area known as Luckenbach.

They began that General Merchandising Store that we know. It was his home and they named Luckenbach after their son-in-law.

The Engels moved to Cranes Mill in 1870, there opening a store and establishing a Post Office he ran for 31 years. But Engel had another calling: He was a circuit-riding preacher in the river valley, Rebecca Creek, Cranes Mill, Twin Sisters and sometimes in New Braunfels. His wife was a midwife. The two of them performed many services for all the people in the area.

In 1890 August Engel’s son, August W. Engel, took over the store and the Post Office and remained there until 1935. Marcelle Hofheinz remembers Cranes Mill Post Office.

The Post Office was in the center of the store and it was enclosed in fine mesh wire, protecting cornmeal and flour from mice.

When Canyon Dam was being constructed over a six-year period, my husband Glyn drove our family of three children to the North Park overlook and took slides at least three times a month. After that, we would go to the Roland Erben ranch to look for rocks. Rock hunting became a lifelong hobby for all of us.

As for Glyn’s slides, you can view them detailing the construction of Canyon Dam by visiting http://www.co.comal.tx. us/CCHC.htm.

What's under Canyon Lake? The remains of the Hancock store disappeared below the waters of Canyon Lake.