One of the more exciting stories concerning the early settlers of New Braunfels was that of Betty Holekamp charging across the Guadalupe on a horse after Prince Carl’s spectacular show of bravado. The story was probably somewhat embellished over the years, but nevertheless it’s a good one.

Prince Carl was of the highest class of aristocracy and I doubt seriously if he appreciated anyone trying to upstage him, much less a woman. He would not be leading the parade for women’s sufferage, but I think Betty would have.

Here’s the story: Georg and Elizabeth Holekamp had married in Germany on March 17, 1844. They set out for Texas to make a new life for themselves. They were on the brig Johann Dethart which was the first ship of the Adelsverein. They arrived in Galveston November 24, 1844.

Georg Holekamp, the son of the royal architect Daniel Holekamp, was educated at the University of Hanover and could speak German, English, French and also studied music and medicine. His father discouraged him from being a musician. He couldn’t have gone farther away from that career – a brick maker and a farmer. Music did become his hobby. For that matter it was while pursuing this hobby that Georg met Elizabeth Abbenthern. While playing the piano, Georg asked for a vocalist and Elizabeth (Betty) came forward. She was 10 years younger and he was impressed.

Betty’s father was the ministerial accountant in the royal court of the King of the state of Hannover. Betty was educated along with the king’s daughters to become a governess.  She had been around the aristocracy before so that may explain her willingness to challenge the prince.

Georg and Betty married and set out for the Republic of Texas. They arrived in Galveston on November 24, 1844. They made their way to New Braunfels and when they could, crossed the Guadalupe to get to the settlement.

Now Betty is the one that tradition says would not want to be outdone by Prince Carl. Supposedly he was riding a white horse and   plunged into the raging flood waters. This white horse story made me question the accuracy of the story. After all, “good” cowboys ride white horses. We don’t know what color Betty’s horse was but she followed suit in true pioneer fashion. Don’t you know Georg was impressed?

In New Braunfels they enrolled in the German Protestant Church. Their town lots bordered Garden St., from Comal St. to the Comal River.

When Texas became a state of the Union, Betty Holekamp sewed a 6 ft by 3 ft United States flag with the 13 red and white stripes and a lone star on a field of blue in the left corner. This earlier Texas flag was known as the Texas Lone Star and Stripes flag. Tradition says that the Holekamp flag was flown on the Plaza and believed to be the first American flag flown in town. Some think that the flying of this flag could have been a message to the aristocratic Prince Carl. What do you think?

Two years after arriving in New Braunfels, the Holekamps moved to Fredericksburg where they received property and Georg became an administrator in property settlement. They never gave up their properties in New Braunfels. Georg built a home and a saw and grist mill on the Comal River at the foot of Garza St. It was also a paper pulp mill and an ice plant. A flood nearly totally destroyed the mill in 1869. This property became Camp Landa and finally the property of Schlitterbahn.

In 1854 the Holekamps moved to Comfort as one of their first settlers. A small rock house is still preserved by the Comfort Historical Society. They also lived in Sisterdale and San Antonio. The Sisterdale house still stands also.

When the Civil War broke out, Georg enlisted in the Confederate army as a surgeon. His  small amount of medical training qualified him to do that. He was the company’s band director at the same time. Unfortunately he was killed in Brownsville in 1862 and neither the cause or burial site was revealed.

Betty Holekamp continued living in Comfort and raised her seven children alone. She outlived her husband by 40 years. What a woman!!

The post What a woman! appeared first on Sophies Shop.

By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

Who would believe that a Union soldier residing in New Braunfels for a mere three months could leave a lasting mark on our city? Nicolaus Dittlinger did just that.

In December of 1865, Nicolaus Dittlinger arrived in New Braunfels with his wife and youngest child, taking a room at the Schmitz Hotel. Dittlinger, originally from Germany, made his home in Cape Giradeau, Missouri, where he and his brother built and operated their business before the Civil War. It was at the end of the war that he contracted tuberculosis and headed south to warmer weather in hopes of regaining his health. That never happened. Nicolaus Dittlinger died in March 1866 at the age of 38. Before she departed for Germany, his wife had a limestone marker cut and inscribed with his name. An iron enclosure was placed around the grave, and she planted a wild rose in the enclosure. The rose bloomed faithfully each April. Mrs. Dittlinger died a short six years later.

Wait … what kind of legacy is that? Dead in three months? Family in Germany?

Fast forward a few years. After graduating from school, the orphaned Dittlinger son, Hippolyt, borrowed money in 1876 to travel from Germany to the United States to check on his father’s holdings. After learning that everything was decimated by the war, he traveled to New Braunfels to pay respects to his deceased father. The April Texas weather was beautiful and very inviting. Hippolyt decided to stay. Mr. Schmitz, the owner of the hotel where his father had died, offered him a place to stay until he could find work.

Hippolyt found employment in Scherff’s Store on the Plaza doing a little of everything. He slept in the store as a night watchman, then in the morning, groomed and fed the horses. He loaded beer barrels, swept the store, helped customers and after closing, kept the books. He then moved to Tips, Clemens and Faust Mercantile where he became a partner. The twenty-year partnership was very successful. What began as a general merchandise store, grew to include a grist mill and cotton gin. In 1887, H. Dittlinger, Peter Faust, and John Faust petitioned the city council to run a cable from Clemens Dam on the Comal River to power the mill. The grist mill grew into a real flour mill. The cotton gin, run by the same power, prospered and grew into an export business based in New York.

Dittlinger Mills (now ADM) was established in 1886 by Hippolyt Dittlinger and Peter Faust. Dittlinger bought Faust out in 1901. The mill was originally water powered, obtaining its power from Clemens Dam across the Comal River. Take-off from the water turbine was by a metal rope drive, one of the longest known in the United States, comprising a loop about 1500 feet long, extending from the north end of the dam across the river to the mill on the south side. The mill was changed to diesel power in 1914 and eventually completely changed to electric power.

By 1930, Dittlinger Mills bought the retired Landa Flour and Feed Mill (now part of Wurstfest grounds). Dittlinger re-tooled the Landa Mill entirely to process poultry and stock feed, greatly increasing the feed production capacity.

In 1904, Hippolyt took his wife and children to meet his remaining sister and aunts in Germany. He was taken with the 2000-year-old buildings erected by the Romans that were still standing strong. He recognized lime mortar as a very important building material. Once back in New Braunfels, he and his engineer studied how to develop a lime plant, just like the one his father Nicolaus had built in Missouri.

The lime plant opened in 1907. Dittlinger hired migrant laborers from Mexico to work the plant, providing them with year-round work. The company built small houses to replace their tents and shacks. The Lime Company also built a combination church/school, two stores and a dance hall. The community was known as Dittlinger Village or La Calera. He was also instrumental in organizing Holy Family Church.

In 1925, the Dittlingers travelled to Rome for the Holy Year or Jubilee as declared by Pope Pius XI. While in Europe, they visited Schloss Braunfels, the castle of Prince Carl’s family, where they received a print of Prince Carl to “hang in our museum.” Hmmm. New Braunfels didn’t have a museum. The Dittlingers graciously kept it until a museum could be built just across the street from their very grand home in 1933. The generosity of the Dittlingers toward the Sophienburg Memorial Association over the years has been incredible. Hippolyt, known as the “father of industry in New Braunfels” died in 1946 at the age of 87.

The Dittlinger Family’s love of New Braunfels was visible again in 1967 when Mr. & Mrs. Alfred Liebscher and Bruno Dittlinger gave $80,000 in memory of their parents, Mr. & Mrs. Hippolyt Dittlinger, for the construction of the new modern library on a lot adjacent to the museum and Emmie Seele Faust Library. The Dittlinger Memorial Library served the city of New Braunfels for thirty years before becoming the home of the Sophienburg Museum & Archives.

Oh, yes, remember that wild rose? In 1985, while conducting a survey/inventory of all cemetery headstones to be published in a book, there was a rose bush growing on the grave of Nicolaus Dittlinger. Turns out, it was a very rare antique rose. Cuttings were taken and propagated, with the first Dittlinger Rose bushes planted around the library in 1993 and again when the new library was built. I thought it sad that none of those existed anymore. Then, I drove to the cemetery. There is an old, old wild rose growing on that grave — 156 years? That’s some legacy.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives

Caption: Special guests at the Dittlinger Rose Dedication at the Dittlinger Memorial Library, April 1993. L-R: Bill Schumann, County Agent; Hippolyt Mengden, a Dittlinger grandson; Maria Liebscher, Dittlinger granddaughter; Christine Brown, who donated the roses; Ethel Canion; and Sue Ragusa.

The post The Dittlinger legacy 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.

Ranch Road 32 West is worth a drive into a scenic part of Comal County. From New Braunfels, drive out FM 306, right on Purgatory Road, then left at RR 32 over a section called Devil’s Backbone. Probably named for the spine of the devil, it winds and winds and you are sure to get car-sick if you are prone to such an affliction.

At the intersection of RR32 and FM484 you come to a settlement called Fischer. Just to tell you how long this settlement has been there, the area (Hermann Fischer Ranch) received the Texas Department of Agriculture Family Land Heritage 150 year designation in 2004, which is given for continuous agricultural operation in the same family beginning at 100 years.

Hermann Fischer and his wife Anna were the first to settle in the valley on 160 acres where they built the first log cabin in the area. They came to Texas in 1846. Otto Fischer bought land next to Hermann’s, and both brothers were in the cattle business. Otto married Adolfina Schlameus. Other Germans that settled in the area were– Schlameus, Spangenberg, Linnartz, Luehlfing, Sachtleben, Pantermuehl, Kaderli, Haas, Schubert, Wersterfer, Krause and Wiechman. With this many families in the valley, Hermann decided to build a store in 1866 at one end of his log cabin. The store became the center of the community. With a large assortment of merchandise, Hermann soon expanded the store to three buildings selling groceries, farm machinery and household goods.

When the settlement received a post office named Fischer’s Store in 1876, it became well known over Texas. Then the name changed to Fischer Store and then in 1950 to Fischer.

A dance hall, bowling alley, school, blacksmith shop, cotton gin, gristmill, rodeo grounds, grist mill and last, but certainly not least, a cemetery was added.

Not far from the settlement on Ranch Road 32 is a large cemetery that has the earmarks of a caring group of people. This cemetery already is an HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY. Many Fischers are buried in that cemetery. Of the almost 500 graves there are other prominent family names.

In 1886 Otto Fischer gave 30 acres of his land to the Fischer’s Store Community for the purpose of building a school for their children. It was on the highest point of this land that the cemetery informally got started. It was appropriately called Fischer’s School Graveyard at Fischer’s Store. The Fischer Cemetery Association was later organized in 1976.

The first burial was the infant son of Monroe and Nettie Smith, nearby landowners and also the cemetery caretaker. Besides family members interred, there are also 21 graves of people whose remains were moved from the area that would become covered by Canyon Lake. Throughout the years, four graves were also moved from the Pantermuehl Ranch and single graves from Dripping Springs, Pleasant Valley, Schlameus Ranch and Suche Ranch.

So what happened to the rest of the 30 acres that was to be used for education? A school was built on this property and still stands. It is now the Fischer Community Center. All the one-room county school houses were consolidated under the Comal County Rural School which led to the current Comal Independent School District. Under this consolidation, the district claimed ownership of the land given by Otto Fischer. In 1976 the CISD transferred 3.851 acres of the original 30 acres to the Fischer Cemetery Association. The association divided the land into 1170 burial plots.

Leaving the cemetery, turn right on RR32 which leads you into the Fischer settlement. Located in the old Fischer Store is the Fischer Store Museum. There is so much history in that museum and so many genuine old things that tell the history of the Fischer community. One relict of interest to me was the old telephone booth that was located inside the store. It is beautifully constructed of wood. Inside the booth was a phone and at one time there were 16 parties on this one line. I even remember when there were two party lines in the city of New Braunfels. But 16?

The old cotton gin ledgers are there and their liquor license #84. The shelving and tables are all authentic to the store. Another interesting relic was a large cabbage slicer. Guess what that was used for. Right. It was used to make sauerkraut. Many people that live in the country still make sauerkraut.

Just down the road from the museum is the old dance hall. Private dances and receptions are still held and a public dance once a year. Next to the dance hall is the bowling alley where, to this day, nine pin bowling takes place.

Did you know that Fischer Store had a polo team? In the museum are homemade mallets made of a type of bamboo and wood. The open grass field measuring 300 feet long and 160 yards wide is still there across from the dance hall. The game was played with four players. One game lasted six chukkers or periods of 7 ½ minutes each. Cecil Smith who died in 1999 is given credit for starting the polo team at Fischer Store. Smith bought horses from the ranchers and trained them to be polo ponies. Polo ponies cannot be used as ranch horses once they are trained to be polo ponies. These trained ponies were temperamental and had a mind of their own. Part of the sport was the pony trying to throw off the rider.

The Comal County Fair will be this next week, Sept 24 to 28. There won’t be a polo game, but there once was. Back in 1932, the fair was reeling from the Depression, trying to stay afloat. They asked for local talent and the Fischer Store polo team challenged the New Braunfels team. The Fischer Store team was made up of Bill Fischer, Raymond Fischer, J.W. Bode, Bubie Vollmering, Reagan Calhoun and —Pape. The New Braunfels team was E.A. Maier, Hilmar Staats, Clifford Startz, Tommie Specht, Dickie Tausch, Roy Meredith, R.R. Coreth, Jackie Bergfeld, and Herbert Marion.

Between chukkers, a burlesque polo team from New Braunfels put on a comedy act. That team was made up of Ernst Stein, Charles Scruggs, Paul Jahn, Pete Nuhn, Coach Rode, “Red” Babel, Barney Koepp, Dr. Rennie Wright and Jack Eiband. What a sight that must have been!

Even without a polo game, see you at the Fair!

The post Devil’s Backbone leads you to Fischer’s Store appeared first on Sophies Shop.