By Keva Hoffmann Boardman —

A Princely Estate — We learn that Maj Leland of New York, has settled among us, having purchased the Comal Ranch of Col. Sparks, fronting the Guadalupe River 9 miles, and laying 22 miles west of New Braunfels … all one body of some ten thousand acres with improvements thereon, and some 640 acres under fence near Mr. G.W. Kendall’s celebrated sheep farm. In his purchase of stock from Col. Sparks, there are some 3000 sheep, 750 head of cattle, 250 head of horses and mules, working oxen, a Maltese jack, two Bramah bulls and the celebrated race horse, Hockaway, and also 1000 hogs, goats, etc … amounting to $106,700, the largest sale ever made in Texas of any stock farm.” — The True Issue (LaGrange) Feb 22, 1859.

Wow. So many questions. Where was this? Who was Col. Sparks? Who was Maj. Leland? Why have I not heard of this enormous ranch?

Oscar Haas apparently had the same questions, because piece-by-piece he collected information from the older generation. Piece-by-piece a mental image has started to come together in my head.

First, where was it? The article said, “fronting nine miles on the Guadalupe … 22 miles west of New Braunfels” and another description adds “about 30 miles nearly north of San Antonio”. This puts us in the Spring Branch area. Bridging Spring Branch and Western Comal County, Texas, by Brenda Anderson-Lindemann, is an exhaustive history of the early German settlers of that area. However, there are only a few references to Comal Ranch, one being that “the Comal Ranch, a Confederate Post about a mile from Spring Branch” became the area post office with William DeForest Holly as postmaster in 1861 and Col. Charles Power from 1862-1865. Knowing these names, Mr. Haas delved into early land records. If you have never read original land grants/deeds, let me tell you, it is not easy.

The news article of Feb 1859 gave the names Col. Sparks and Maj. Leland. Found very little on Daniel P. Sparks. He was originally from South Carolina and served in the US Army in 1812 (yes, that war). In 1857, he moved his family to Louisiana and then to Indianola, Texas. Don’t know how he got to Comal County but after he died in 1867 on a trip to New Orleans, his will was probated in Comal County. According to the above news article, he sold the expansive Rancho Comal to Maj. Leland in 1859.

Maj. William W. Leland was from a well-known family of New York hotel proprietors. In 1849 at age 28, he headed to California for 10 years. After that, he owned a hotel in New York for several years and then did a salvage project in Russia. He took the remains of his fortune and purchased the Comal Ranch, in 1859, to go into stock raising on a grand scale. In a May 1859 issue of the NB Zeitung, Maj. Leland advertised the service of several fine stallions for $25-$75 and the sale of merino rams from Vermont for $100-$500. He was fairly successful, but the project was doomed by the coming of the Civil War. Maj. Leland was elected to the Texas Convention on Secession as a delegate from Karnes County. He strongly opposed secession and spoke out defending the Union. He was given two hours to leave the State, his property was confiscated, and he went back to New York financially ruined. He joined the Union Army and after the war got into the hotel business again.

The Rancho Comal was next owned by William DeForest Holly and Danville Leadbetter. In 1860, DeForest Holly conveyed half of the following tracts of land for $19,375 to Danville Leadbetter: 431 acres of the (1851) James Henderson Survey north of the river; 50 acres known as the Foster Place on Spring Branch Creek; 960 acres of (1846) John Angel Survey; 1280 acres of the (1846) James Henderson Survey; 1600 acres of three (1846) Gordon C. Jennings Surveys; 580 acres of the (1848) James Webb Survey; and 640 acres of the (1848) James W. Luckett Survey. You can see these land grants on the map.

DeForest Holly was made Confederate postmaster of the Comal Ranch/Spring Branch area in 1861, but in 1862, the Comal Ranch was sold to Col. Charles Power … 5324 acres for $19,543.44. The ranch came with: a caballado of 322 horses; 350 head of stock cattle; 50 beef cattle; 2000 sheep; 40 bucks; one Brahmin bull; 3 stallion horses named Belchazer, Scott Morgan and Hockaway; 5 yokes of oxen; 1 ox wagon; hogs and goats.

In 1869, an incident at Rancho Comal made the NB Zeitung. A young black girl was living with a Mexican family named Rodriguez. She was molested by a black man called “Crazy Gus’. Mr. Rodriguez confronted Crazy Gus, but was stopped in his questioning by two other men, Alfred Carson and Antonio Rubio, who defended Gus. A week later, Crazy Gus went to the Rodriguez home and threatened to hurt or murder the girl and Mrs. Rodriguez. Old man Carson tried to shoot him but Mrs. Rodriguez intervened and the men were taken to Comal Ranch and held. Rodriguez appealed to the Justice of the Peace Theodor Goldbeck for retribution. JP Goldbeck could not have Crazy Gus arrested because there was no sheriff sworn in. It seems that the Reconstruction government after the Civil War had not gotten around to everything yet. Crazy Gus, crazy politics, just crazy.

Col. Power went bankrupt in 1869. The Rancho Comal went into receivership secured by creditors in Austin. 2800 sheep, 233 horse, 400 cattle, 30 beeves, 2 stallions, 1 jack, 28 bucks, 2 Mexican jacks, 1 jenny, 1 Durham bull, 12 stock horses, 200 hogs, 6 yokes of oxen, 2 ambulances, 6 sets of harness, and 3 mules were auctioned off on Tuesday, May 1, 1869.

The 5334 acres, made up of 9 surveys, were bought by the creditors for $4,500.

In 1871, 960 acres of the John Angel Survey were purchased by Dietrich Knibbe who had founded the community of Spring Branch in 1852. In 1880, 92 acres were bought by Keturah M. Voight; Voight picked up 277 ½ acres more in 1881. In 1882, 1421 acres of the Luckett, Webb and Jennings Surveys were sold to F.W. Rust; 195 ½ acres were bought by Herman and Charles Knibbe; 976 ½ acres were sold to Friedrich Bartels; and the last 546 acres were purchased by Henry Bender.

The Comal Ranch was now a part of the families of many of the early Spring Branch settlers. However, the extensive ranch with prize stallions lived on in stories. In 1884, the San Antonio Light related a story which had recently occurred to C. J. Forester while at “Comal Ranch”:

I want to tell you a horse story, not a fish story, yet a true story … I had in New Braunfels a spring wagon and a pair of horses. One of them, a stallion was taken sick with colic and came near dying; he was so bad that after the lance was struck it was nearly two minutes before he bled. We then took about a gallon of blood from him, and turned him into an unused lot to get a roll and some grass. Next morning I put his mate in with him. In the lot was a well about 50 feet deep, with 15 feet of water in it, partially covered with plank, and it is supposed that in playing or fighting, the stallion kicked his mate into the well. Some men nearby, hearing the rumpus and the fall, and going to the well, found the horse partly submerged, with his feet resting on the ledges of rock, keeping his head above water. Being at once apprised of the case, I had a derrick rigged and placed, and paid a negro $10 to go down and fix the ropes on him. The air was so bad that he nearly fainted, but pulled through, and we pulled up the horse, who, strange to say, after four hours in the well, started off with only a limp, and went to grazing. We found he had a cut in the shoulder, which we sewed up; otherwise he seemed uninjured …” — San Antonio Light, October 9, 1884

I have asked lots of people what they know about Rancho Comal and truth be told, even if they have heard of it, no one really knows anything about it. Was that because it belonged to a string of Anglo Americans originally from other parts of the US and not the German immigrants? I find it interesting that several of the early owners were military men with visions of a grand project in Texas, but that none of them were buried in Texas. And then there was the Civil War; it definitely had an impact on the viability of Comal Ranch.

I keep looking at the land grant maps and thinking, “Wow. I can barely imagine a huge ranch like that here in Comal County.” Sadly, that vast Comal Ranch full of cattle, race horses, sheep, goats, pastures and farm buildings is now full of lots and lots and lots of homes.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum Oscar Haas Collection; Texas General Land Office; Neu Braunfelser-Zeitung; San Antonio Light; The True Issue, LaGrange; Bridging Spring Branch and Western Comal County, Texas, Brenda Anderson-Lindemann; Sparks Family pedigree; Find a Grave; Wikipedia; Comal County Historical Commission; Land Grant Map of Comal County, DelRay E. Fischer, 2007.

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By Tara V. Kohlenberg

Change. One of the few constants of life. Because change is occurring rapidly in and around New Braunfels, rural cemeteries are endangered. Cemeteries and graveyards are sometimes the only connection to the history of an area. York Creek Cemetery is one of historical importance, as it documents the lives of early permanent inhabitants of the York Creek and Hunter communities.

Where the heck is York Creek, you might ask? The actual York Creek begins somewhere around Wegner Road in Comal County and travels southeast through Hays and Guadalupe counties before flowing into the San Marcos River. The creek naturally attracted farmers to the resource.

Along about 1867, a man by the name of Andrew Jackson Hunter settled his family on York’s Creek (now York Creek). He operated a thousand-acre cotton farm. The land was strategically located along a stagecoach line that ran from New Braunfels to San Marcos before the railroad.

In 1880, the townsite of Hunter was established with the arrival of the International and Great Northern Railroad. By 1883 a post office opened in Gustavus A. Schleyer’s general store, with the owner as postmaster. Schleyer’s store, a cotton gin, a grocery store, and a saloon were in operation there by 1884, when Hunter had about sixty residents. By 1890, Hunter was a bustling community of 200 that included two saloons, a barbershop, a blacksmith, a wagonmaker, a meat market, and a gin and gristmill.

York’s Creek Cemetery came into being on October 7, 1882, when Ernst Gruene, Jr. sold one acre of land to D. G. Posey, Frank Tate, and Charles Crawford to be used as a community cemetery. Posey, Tate and Crawford were the first cemetery trustees. The cemetery doubled in size in 1904, when William Simon, Sr. sold one acre of land to cemetery trustees, D. G. Posey, Charles Crawford, and William Simon, Jr. That is when they formed an association and officially named it York Creek Cemetery. They elected D. G. Posey, C. B. Crawford, and H. Wiegreffe as commissioners. A. J. Wallhoefer was elected secretary and treasurer. Currently, Mr. James B. Skarovsky and his wife, Lynn, are the only trustees of record.

There are over 180 burials recorded in York Creek Cemetery. According to existing records the earliest burial in the newly established cemetery was John B. Taylor, in 1885. Seven of the graves must have been moved to York Creek, as the death dates predate the cemetery. Most of those buried in the cemetery were born in Texas although at least 16 were born in Germany. Over half of those buried bear German surnames. Occupations of the deceased and their families included farmers, homemakers, laborers, railroad workers, blacksmiths, military, and saloon keepers. Hobart Gilmore, who was killed in 1972 Flood, is also buried there.

Walking through the cemetery, it is easy to see the various family groupings with over 68 different surnames (no way to write about all of them!). Some families are represented in greater numbers. The Soechtings have twenty-one graves. Friedrich Heinrich Andreas Söchting (German spelling) immigrated to Texas in 1852. While preparing to emigrate, he met Christine Katarina Gold, also planning to emigrate. Since married couples received special consideration, they married, before leaving Germany. They moved inland to New Braunfels and in 1866 they purchased 17.5 acres on York Creek. In 1878, they purchased an additional 338 acres for 4.90 an acre. They raised five children.. The children in turn had large families and most continued to farm in the area.

In 1850, Henry Rutherford Crawford and wife, Ann B. Wilson Crawford moved from Tennessee and purchased a 300-acre farm on Hunter Road. The couple established a school in the nearby Bonito settlement. Prior to that time, the first school was conducted in their home with their daughter, Lizzie Crawford, as teacher. Lizzie also taught at the Hunter School. In her will, she designated 500 to build the cemetery fence. Her brother, Charles B. Crawford was one of the first cemetery trustees.

Frances D’Gress Posey came to Texas at age 5 in a wagon train with his parents, brothers and aunts from Tennessee. The Posey family arrived in Texas at the Watson Campgrounds in Comal County (or could be Hays County) in early fall of 1853. That was their home for several years. Eventually, his parents, John Bennett and Amanda Posey, farmed cotton on 539 acres in the York Creek area. Frances D’Gress Posey married Mary Elizabeth Neill in 1869. Frances was a farmer and one of the first cemetery association trustees. He, his wife and many descendants are buried in the York Creek Cemetery. Posey land is now part of TXI.

John Dix Watson conveyed one acre of land in exchange for 1 for the nearby Watson School. It was located on Neill homestead land off Watson Lane. The school was closed in 1949 and combined with other schools as the Goodwin School. Mr. Watson was a Confederate veteran. He is one of seven veterans buried in York Creek

James Curtis Riley was a saloon keeper and started Riley’s Tavern in Hunter after the repeal of Prohibition. Riley’s Tavern has a Texas Historical Commission marker and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It is one of the oldest taverns in Texas and reported to have the first liquor license issued after the repeal.

Alwin Merz was a trustee when the cemetery was established. He was a farmer married to Annie Braune Merz. Alwin’s parents were John and Elise Strempel Merz, who immigrated from Germany and farmed the York Creek area. Both couples are buried in the York Creek Cemetery.

York Creek Cemetery is a perfect example of a rural cemetery: quietly resting under huge oak trees, protected by a chain link fence with rock posts. Unfortunately, the two-acre cemetery is no longer located among the green pastures and farmhouses. The York Creek/Hunter community was sheared in half when Interstate 35 was built; and the cemetery is now surrounded by industrial warehouses just off one of the most travelled highways in Texas. Little has changed inside the York Creek Cemetery, but much has changed around this true Comal County treasure that holds so much history. It was designated a Historic Texas Cemetery by the Comal County Historical Commission 2022.

Sources: Handbook of Texas Online; The Comal County Historical Commission; Jim Skarovsky; Paul Soechting; Wilfred Schlather; John Coers; Karen Boyd.

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New Braunfels loves to celebrate anniversaries, but this date, Friday August 20 in 1886, we can commemorate but not celebrate. It was on this day one hundred thirty years ago (as of yesterday) that a hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. It was so strong that it destroyed the town of Indianola. Traveling with inland winds of 70 miles an hour, it wrecked everything in its path as far as San Antonio. New Braunfels was not spared.

A letter written by Sen. George Pfeuffer to his wife, Susan Gravis Pfeuffer, who had remained in Austin was recently discovered by John Rightmire at an estate sale. The letter was written in New Braunfels by Pfeuffer immediately after the storm hit the town. A letter like this one is a primary source and to have someone at the location at the time of the event provides primary proof. A good example of primary sources are the letters written home to relatives in Germany giving accounts of what was going on and what things looked like back here in Texas. Rightmire’s “find” provides us with a description of what effect the hurricane had on New Braunfels.

George Pfeuffer was a prominent person in New Braunfels and Texas, having established a merchandise store here, and a lumber yard in NB and two other towns. He was politically active. He was a county judge and president of the board of directors of Texas A&M College. He led the fight to obtain state funds for schools as a senator from 1882 to 1884. When he died, the Granite Association of Texas put up a giant obelisk in his memory in the Comal Cemetery. It is made of pink granite, the same as the capitol. He was responsible for the use of the pink granite.

This is information from his letter: At 3:30 in the afternoon on this day, George Pfeuffer took to the streets around Main Plaza. He wrote to his wife that half of the tin covering of their home was gone and that the frame of the new floor addition was also gone. This house was on the corner of San Antonio St. and Comal Ave. facing Comal Ave. where the law office of Brazle and Pfeuffer is now located. (The older home was torn down in 1910 and the bricks used to build the home in the same location but facing San Antonio St. Somers Valentine Pfeuffer, son of George, built this house.)

Next to the Pfeuffer home was the Carl Floege Store on the corner now owned by the New Braunfels Utilities and it was also badly damaged. This building had been the location of the first district court in 1846.

Pfeuffer walked to where his lumber yard was located. That is where the present City Hall is on Castell Ave. The lumber sheds were knocked down as well as the nearby freight depot. Bob Pfeuffer, g-grandson of the senator says that this depot was close to the railroad track behind the lumber yard. Besides the personal loss at the lumber yard, he noticed that most of the roofs in town were gone.

He walked to the Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church and discovered that the steeple of the roof was sticking in the roof, but wrong-side up. Nearly every tree in town had fared badly. He walked by Heinrich Ludwig’s Hotel behind the Phoenix Saloon and saw that it lost its tin roof and bricks from chimneys were scattered everywhere. Pfeuffer described the damage scene at Voelcker’s on Castell Ave. like this: “The entire front looks like the result of a mule’s heels on the dash board of a light wagon.” It could have been the Voelcker Drug Store (Red Stag) or the Voelcker home also on Castell Ave.

Down Seguin Ave. Forke’s Store was gone as was Seele’s tin roof on the new building and the cotton gin roof was gone. The Forke Store building was given to Conservation Plaza much later. He mentions other buildings that were damaged, Bench’s Hall, Podewils, and Rennerts. The building that we know the most about is the already dilapidated building on Sophienburg Hill, once the headquarters of Prince Carl. It finally bit the dust as a result of this hurricane.

Pfeuffer wrote to his wife that he would not be in Austin anytime soon as he had to tend to the damage caused by the storm on the house, the lumber yard, and the store building, although it withstood the “puff,” it needs to be “recommenced.” The letterhead on which the letter was written gives an idea of what the Pfeuffer Store was all about. It was located on the corner of San Antonio St. and Castell Ave. where the Antique Mall is now located. He and his son, S.V. Pfeuffer, dealt in general merchandise, dry goods, groceries, crockery, tobacco, cigars and hardware. Also farm implements, wagons, carriages and they were buyers of cotton, grain and country produce.

As for Indianola, the town itself was created as a direct result of the German emigrants who were brought to the Republic of Texas by the Adelsverein. It was their port of entry after landing in Galveston beginning in 1844. The death of Indianola occurred as a result of its near sea level location on Matagorda Bay. There were two hurricanes, one in 1875 and the big one eleven years later in 1886. In 1886, as a result of a severe drought in Texas, an unusual wind became the subject of discussion and a hurricane had passed south of Key West and into the Gulf of Mexico. The quickly moving hurricane inundated the town with the exception of two buildings, one being the Court House. The once important port city was ultimately destroyed.

Indianola was the home of many beautiful, large homes built by prominent citizens. After the hurricane of 1886, some of these homes were moved to be reconstructed because they were in salvageable condition. Two were moved to Cuero. The Emil Reiffert home was dismantled, numbered and re-assembled. Also in Cuero is the Sheppard home that is now the De Witt County Historical Museum. Three buildings were moved to Victoria, the William Frobese home is now the rectory of Grace Episcopal Church. The home of Henry Huck was dismantled, transported by rail and reassembled. Finally, the D.H. Regan residence was also moved by rail.

Familiarity with storms was not new to the George Pfeuffer family. George Pfeuffer’s father, Johann Georg Pfeuffer, had been a successful tanner in Germany in the 1830s. For some unknown reason in 1845, he sold his businesses and signed on with the German Emigration Co. to leave for Texas. The parents and six children were among the second group to come to Texas. They arrived in Galveston in November 1845. From there they took a schooner to Indianola.

A near tragedy occurred when the schooner was overloaded and sank in the bay outside of Indianola. The family was saved but they lost all of their possessions. They were stuck on the coast along with hundreds of other immigrants waiting for transportation inland. They did not reach New Braunfels until 1848.

Only 26 days after his letter was written, George Pfeuffer died on September 15, 1886. His letter now joins other letters written by early citizens that help us understand our past.

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