Judging by recent headlines, good, affordable housing in the Austin-San Antonio area is hard to come by, especially in New Braunfels. As is my usual, I was on a mission looking for something else when I ran across this excerpt from the Herald Zeitung. It is a portion of a letter dated January 13, 1850, written by Mrs. Ida Kapp to her sister back in Germany. It’s about their arrival in New Braunfels. Mrs. Kapp, the wife of Dr. Ernst Kapp, and their five children ages 4, 6, 10, 13 and 15, set out on Christmas day by horse drawn wagon and arrived in New Braunfels nine days later. Without benefit of phone or text conversation to Europe, she writes in detail about her family of seeking a good safe place to make a living and raise their children. Just check out the descriptions of housing available to New Braunfels residents in 1850

When we finally came into New Braunfels I felt quite wretched. It was a hot day, the appearance of us after nine days of camping out on the road is hard to describe. The first thing we did was to go to Bracht’s who had offered to find a house for us. Not one was to be found in New Braunfels with more than one room and besides all these had no rainproof roofs.

We were recommended to a residence in Comaltown, a 15-minute drive from New Braunfels, and this we decided to take. We first ate our noon meal at a boarding house and then drove out to what has now been our sanctuary for three weeks.

That was a road to drive on. Six oxen were hitched to the wagon and two times we had to shudder and quake through water, Comal Creek and Comal River, and then on over rocks, sticks and stumps. To travel on the roads here one must acquire nerves of steel.

Here in Comaltown our home consists of four rooms, some think quite out of the ordinary here, only it was occupied before it was finished, as usually is the case here and so was never completed. One room has been whitewashed and you cannot understand what that means here, but the rest stand in their (unplastered) raw brick walls. Only one door has been put in, all the rest are boarded up and three rooms have no ceiling, only the bare roof, and several broken window panes, so on nights when a norther is blowing we have to use a lantern for light (Lighted kerosene oil lamps or candles naturally would be blown out by the wind).

Everybody marvels at our wonderful home, which even has a cooking machine (Kochmachine). The house also has a beautiful porch (Gallerie) and there have not been more than three days on which we had to stay inside the house; the other days it was much pleasanter out on the porch.

So, here we now run our little household, Antonie and I change duties each week, one does the kitchen work, the other takes care of the children and tidies the bedrooms. The boys have to keep their own room in order, chop stove wood, and carry it and water into the house, get provisions from town, tend to the horse and mule we bought here in Comaltown. After that they go exploring and bird hunting and engage in other profitless undertakings.

The water of the Comal River is the most wonderful seen anywhere. Its entire course is but a few miles long but is wider and flows much more water than the Ruhr River at Arnserg. It is a really enchanting, (bezaubernd) stream.

Forests, called bottoms (like pecan bottom), extend along all water courses. Otherwise Texas is not much wooded, which facilitates putting land into cultivation. Up to now I have seen but few varieties of trees, no southern vegetation whatsoever, several species of oaks. The live oak is an evergreen and has a very hard wood so it is not used much. Cactus and yuccas, which we consider deep southern vegetation, grow here in wild profusion. Hedwig today found a beautiful light lavender flower with fragrance so much like a violet.

Maybe it’s just me, but the thought of traveling in a wagon… in December…and wrangling five kids would cause me to stop and think a long while before deciding on this undertaking. The adventure might sound fun for maybe a day before it would get old. And it makes me shudder just to think about what it would be like with only a roof, no ceiling, much less missing window panes. That does not sound like much more than camping in a shelter. Brrr! I’m proud my ancestors and people like the Kapps toughed it out to make a new life for us, but I am not so sure that I would be very good at it. I’m only glad that the housing available today is a tremendous upgrade from 1850.

Sources:

• New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung
• Sophienburg Museum & Archives

The post Affordable housing in the 1850s appeared first on Sophies Shop.

Come celebrate our Declaration of Independence once again with the Sophienburg’s July 4^th celebration and parade. The parade will begin at 9:15 so be at the Plaza early. I have invited a ghost from the past to be there. John Torrey will surely be at his old stomping grounds in spirit.

Who was John Torrey? I wrote an article about John Torrey Feb. 23, 2010. A little more detail of the John Torrey story takes us back to why and how he became such a prominent person in the settlement of New Braunfels.

There were seven Torrey brothers from Connecticut. Two stayed in Connecticut, two were killed in Texas and three, John, David, and Thomas, formed the Torrey Brothers Trading House in Houston in 1836. This trading company became a very important strategy of Sam Houston’s peace policy with the Indians. With a significant fur trade, there were several branch stores in Texas that brought the Indians and the settlers together.

The Torrey brothers in 1844 furnished Prince Carl with ammunition, swords, and arms for the soldiers that Prince Carl had organized to protect the newly arrived emigrants. John Torrey was with Prince Carl as he inspected the New Braunfels property right before the settlers crossed the Guadalupe. Later when John Meusebach became the second commissioner-general after Prince Carl left, David Torrey drew up a contract to help transport those emigrants who needed transportation from Indianola.

This connection with the Adelsverein is what brought the Torreys to New Braunfels in 1846. Here John conducted a trading business on the corner of San Antonio and Hill Sts. where he ground corn into cornmeal for the settlers for 10 cents a bushel. Then Torrey moved closer to where we are celebrating July 4^th. While you’re standing around the Plaza, take a look over at the UPS building on the corner of San Antonio St. and Seguin Ave. This location is the first recorded deed of John Torrey in May 1847 when he built a store on that corner. He leased this property from Penelope Hunter of San Antonio for $30 a year. The property encompassed the corner lot all the way to the present Black Whale. This property had first been granted to Nicholas Reidel by the German Emigration Co. One of the lease agreements with Mrs. Hunter was that it was not to be used as a saloon or boarding house without her permission. That agreement didn’t last long because in a few years that very building became the saloon of Ferdinand Simon.

Now from the Plaza, you’re just a hop, skip and jump to the San Antonio St. Bridge. Before you go on to the bridge, look to the right where the Dittlinger office building is located (ADM). This was approximately where the John Torrey homestead was located.

A little bridge background: There had to be a bridge from the settlement of New Braunfels and Comaltown. The earliest bridge, known as the Pecan Bridge and described by Hermann Seele, pinpoints the location of a pecan foot bridge on an island at the juncture of the Comal River and Comal Creek. Two pecan trees, one on each bank of the Comal, had been felled onto the island. Pedestrians crossed back and forth between NB and Comaltown holding on to handrails. This bridge was at the foot of Bridge St.

The first wagon bridge built across the Comal by the city was in 1856. This bridge made of timber was located diagonally from the foot of Mill St. to the north edge of San Antonio St. After ten years another bridge was built there in 1866 only to be partially destroyed by a flood in 1869. This bridge was repaired and then completely torn away by another flood in 1870. The city built an iron wagon bridge in the same location as these two bridges, but once again a flood in 1872 washed it away.

Merchant C.C. Floege built a low water crossing in 1872 that lasted until 1894 when it was replaced by the high water structure built from scrap metal from the Chicago World’s Fair. Then in 1923 the concrete bridge now in use was built.

Now that you’re on the concrete bridge, you can look down to where the John Torrey mill used to be. In 1848 Torrey entered into a lease agreement with Hermann Speiss trustee of the German Emigration Co. to build a mill. The lease was for 1 4/5 acres for $75 a year for a parcel of land in New Braunfels at the juncture of Comal Creek (River) and the Comal Springs, the place being at the “falls”. Oscar Haas tells us that the falls was the only one on the Comal River and it is there that Torrey built a dam to use the water power for his mill. Torrey entered into an agreement with Willis E. Park to build a saw and grist mill. He later added facilities for the manufacture of wheat flour and a shop for making doors, sashes and blinds. It was destroyed by fire in 1861. Immediately Torrey put up a three story stone building. In 1863 he was joined by the Runge brothers of Indianola and they were granted a charter by the State of Texas to import cotton cloth weaving machinery, duty free. Six years later in 1869 a tornado destroyed the top floor and all the machinery. He had a roof placed over the second story and then in 1872 a cloudburst caused a flood tearing the foundation and destroying the recently rebuilt dam.

Today part of the foundation can still be seen at the Clemens Dam at the foot of Mill Street. It has been said that fire, wind, and water plotted against John Torrey’s efforts on the Comal River. Torrey, defeated, moved to land which he had bought in North Texas. After all of this explanation, I could have told you that it was where the Tube Chute is, right?

John Torrey, like William Meriwether and Harry Landa, were true industrialists. They knew what water power could do. Torrey bought a great deal of land in Comaltown. He hired J.J. Groos to plot out the Braunfels Subdivision. He gave the land on which the Comal Cemetery is located to the City of New Braunfels. Torrey Street is named after him because of the amount of land that he owned. Also Torrey Park is named after him. The mill site was honored by the State of Texas during the Centennial of Texas Independence in 1936 with an historical marker at the location of the mill.

To walk or ride in the parade, an application is required and a patriotic theme is essential. Whatever you do, come join us!

The post Go downtown to celebrate the 4th of July appeared first on Sophies Shop.