Texas is the perfect environment for many creatures. One of them is snakes, and here in central Texas we have poisonous ones: copperheads, coral snakes, cottonmouths (water moccasins) and rattlesnakes. Early Comal Countians were very familiar with our slithering neighbors. The NB Zeitung records many encounters by citizens all around the county — – many of them deadly. Here are some of the early ones:

• 1855 — Joseph Scherz of Cibolo DIED of snake bite.
• 1859 — 6-yr-old son of Mr. Hazeldanz of 8 Mile Creek DIED of rattlesnake bite.
• 1860 — Son of Wilhelm Fehlis of York Creek found DEAD of snake bite where he was picking dewberries.
• 1861 — G. Sacherer killed 6’8” long, 10” diameter rattlesnake.
• 1868 — Son of Kresche DIED of snake bite and Bartels loses horse from snake bite, both from Hortontown.
• 1874 — Morhoff of Comaltown bitten on hand by rattlesnake.
• 1880 — C.J. Wells, caretaker of mail and stagecoach stop, DIED of snake bite.
• 1881- Child of Mr. Riesling of York Creek bitten by rattlesnake while picking cotton; Johanna See DIED of rattlesnake bite; Henry Lueers of Purgatory Springs killed 6’ rattlesnake that had 10 baby rabbits inside; Mrs. Wilhelm Uhle bitten by snake.
• 1882 — Child of Christian Pape and child of Jacob Heidrich bitten by rattlesnake.
• 1886 — F. Alves killed large rattlesnake with 13 rattles; F. Donnerberg of Blanco, killed rattlesnake with 15 rattles and five unhatched eggs.
• 1887 — 8-yr-old son of W. Fenske of Davenport bitten by copperhead.
• 1890 — Julius, son of Fritz Coers, DIED of rattlesnake bite; son of Theo. Heise of Hancock Valley bitten by rattlesnake.
• 1894 — Carl Brehm of Selma and Fritz Buch of Schumannsville bitten by rattlesnakes; 8-yr-old daughter of Heinrich Jentsch of Huaco Springs and 4-yr-old child of George Beierle DIED of snakebite.
• 1895 — Mr. Thormeyer bitten by rattlesnake; John Sippel killed rattlesnake with 12 rattles; 65-yr-old Marie Werner DIED from rattlesnake bite; Heinrich Jentsch of Hueco Springs killed 30 rattlesnakes on his farm from January until October (he lost his daughter to snakebite in 1894).
• 1896 — Hermann Dierks and Mrs. Frank Nowotny bitten by rattlesnake; 10-yr-old son of Syl. Steubing DIED from rattlesnake bite.
• 1900 — 2-yr-old son of Carl Tonne of Davenport bitten on the leg by rattlesnake.
• 1901 — 10-yr-old daughter of Fritz Scheel of Anhalt DIED of rattlesnake bite while walking to school.
• 1902 — Willie Bremer of Bracken bitten by rattlesnake; son of Friedrich Jonas bitten by rattlesnake while picking cotton.
• 1903 — Heinrich Harborth and H. W. Glenewinkel found nest of snakes in Harborth’s pasture and killed an 8’ prairie snake and 12 rattlesnakes; Max Heimer of Smithsons Valley and Theodore Holekamp bitten by rattlesnakes; Marie Syring bitten by snake while cutting corn tops on her father’s farm.
• 1904 — 19-yr-old Eduard Jonas bit by rattlesnake in cornfield; Arno Jentsch bitten by snake; 8 yr-old son of Heinrich Schneider bitten on finger by rattlesnake.
• 1906 — Franz Preiss and Ottomer Linnartz were at Twin Sisters and came upon a rattlesnake running with 12 babies. She saw them and swallowed all the little snakes. 8-yr-old daughter of Rudolph Jonas DIED of rattlesnake bite.
• 1919 — 9-yr-old daughter of Ernst Pape of Sattler DIED of rattlesnake bite.

The paper also has articles on how to treat snakebite. In 1855, it suggested the use of whiskey and button snakeroot (Eryngium yuccifolium or Liatris squarrosa, both go by the common name “rattlesnake master”). I had to do some research. The chewed roots were applied to wounds and used as a cure for snakebite by Native Americans. They also used it to expel worms, induce vomiting and treat liver trouble. The plant could be used in the treatment of disorders of the kidneys and sexual organs since it had diaphoretic, diuretic and (in large doses) emetic properties. Other ailments treated with button snakeroot were infectious fevers and respiratory complaints. Did the whiskey just make it go down easier?

My dad recently told me a story about my granddaddy. When he was a little boy growing up in Schumannsville, he stuck his hand down a rat hole. He got bit by a rattlesnake. His mom ran to the chicken house and grabbed a hen “that was sitting on eggs.” Ripping it apart down the middle, she wrapped the chicken around his hand and left it on the wound until the “meat turned blue.” Granddaddy got sick, but it didn’t kill him. David Hartmann recently shared this same cure on a Facebook post, so it must have been common knowledge for folks around here. A friend of mine who grew up in Mexico says they used to do the same thing. A dead chicken? Apparently, the chicken’s body temperature is higher and this draws the poison into it and out of you. I don’t know the medical reason, but it saved my granddaddy’s life.

Back then, fewer people meant more places for these creatures to live. Today, with all the new building and loss of farm and pasture land, you’d think we would see a decline in the snake population. But not around my house. I know some of you like snakes and just walk around them. That’s fine. But even when I know the role they play in “the circle of life,” I’d rather not share my space with them. I live on property known as “Rattlesnake Hill” by old-timers. A couple of years ago, my mom killed over 20 rattlers one spring. This spring we have had three sightings and two exterminations….one got away into the bushes. One of the deceased had actually moved in under my back porch. For over a month we could hear the rattles go off every time we walked over the floor. Named the thing Sparkles. Sparkles scared my exterminator away…literally. Finally, my son met Sparkles on the its way out from under the house, with a .22.

RIP, Sparkles.

Sources: https://pfaf.org/user/Plant/aspx?LatinName=Eryngium; https://gardensoftheblueridge.com; https://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/s/snabut57.html; Neu Braunfelser Zeitung collection, Sophienburg Museum and Archives

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There was a time when teachers in the rural areas were furnished a house called a teacherage. These dwellings were either attached to the school or nearby. One such teacherage can be seen while driving along the Guadalupe River Road. The school and teacherage were located at the confluence of the Guadalupe River and Jacobs Creek between the third and fourth crossing.

A teacherage was offered to attract a teacher for the rural school. It provided a place to live, raise a family, raise animal stock, and a garden. The Jacobs Creek teacherage, one of the first built in Comal County, was built using a combination of log cabin style combined with fachwerk using handmade brick and cut limestone infill. These were prevalent building materials in early New Braunfels and especially the rural areas. Mountain cedar beams were used as well as wooden shingles for the roof. There are two rooms, the parlor with loft and the back room that was used for sleeping and storage. Can you imagine living with your whole family in a home this size?

The Friedrich family was responsible for beginning the Jacobs Creek School. Oskar Friedrich was one of those Germans who came to the United States in the 1800s. He landed in New York and there married Augusta Rudolph. They came to Texas and bought land to ranch near Sattler. The ranch was eventually 1,695 acres and it was called “Friedrichstahl” which means Friederichs Valley. In 1867, the Friedrichs donated land for the Jacobs Creek School and teacherage next to Jacobs Creek. Friedrich allowed his fellow rancher neighbors along River Road, access to cross the property to attend school. This gesture led the way for other ranchers to do the same and allow access all the way to Hueco Springs near the first crossing and also passage to Sattler from New Braunfels. Friedrich is often credited with the beginning of the Guadalupe River Road.

One of Oskar’s and Auguste’s daughters, Agnes, married Carl Pantermuehl and they built the teacherage that is still standing. Carl became a teacher at the school. He was born in 1838 in Germany to Joachim and Katherine Markwardt Pantermuehl. His mother died in Germany and the rest of the family came to Texas and settled on Rebecca Creek. They were a founding family of the Rebecca Creek area. Sons, Joachim Jr., Friedrich, Wilhelm, Carl and Christian Pantrmuehl all bought property near Sattler and were prominent Sattler citizens. Carl and Agnes had three children, Alfred, Julius and Louisa, all born and raised in the teacherage.

Pantermuehl descendant, Valeska Pantermuehl, recalled in a Reflections program at the Sophienburg, that it took all day to go to New Braunfels and back on River Road. She grew up in the teacherage and she recalled opening and closing 12 to 14 ranch gates along the trip.

Laurie E. Jasinski in her book, Hill Country Backroads, Showing the Way in Comal County, wrote that, “Sometimes getting an eyeful of reward took work like traversing many farms and ranches and encountering cattle guards and gates along the way.” Of course, it was courteous to close the gate behind you, which meant lots of getting in and out of the car. If you were lucky, there were bumper gates that were large swinging gates rotating on a pendulum that you tapped with the front bumper to swing open. The River Road was at times a narrow, rocky trail and the river had to be crossed several times. Extra tires, tree removal equipment and lots of time was required so that you could experience the beautiful river and scenic vistas.

Joe Sanders was Laurie Jasinski’s grandfather. Joe and others belonging to the American Legion, were responsible back in the 1930s, for putting up road signs in Comal County and also compiling the American Legion Scenic Road Map of Comal County, Texas. This Centennial (of the Republic of Texas) map was printed in 1936 and has some amazing little details concerning River Road. One bit of information noted is the portion of the road labeled “Shoreline proposed flood-control lake” and noted with “dots.”

The idea of a reservoir along the Guadalupe River was even talked about back in the 1930s. The flooding of the most of the time beautiful and calm Guadalupe River had always been a problem downstream. Incidentally, you can get a frame-able copy of the 1936 centennial map at Sophie’s Shop at the Sophienburg.

A problem with having a reservoir along the Guadalupe River Road was discovered when it was found that all of the sheer riverside walls and cliffs contained caverns. The extensive cavern systems would not allow the area to hold water. The alternative was to build the Canyon Dam and Reservoir where it is now. On the north side of the dam, there are cavernous bluffs that had to be plugged prior to the filling of the lake.

The area at the confluence of Jacobs Creek and the Guadalupe River would have been under water if it had not been for the caverns discovered. But, the plans for the lake were changed and the Jacobs Creek School ruins (mostly rubble) and the intact Jacobs Creek School teacherage survived.

According to Oscar Haas, the statutes of the German Emigration Company called for the immediate establishment of churches and schools upon the founding of New Braunfels. Schools and education were important to the immigrants and as early as August of 1845, Hermann Seele began teaching under the elm trees at the foot of Sophienburg Hill. In 1853, New Braunfels established a city school and in 1854, the Comal County Commissioners Court divided Comal County into eight districts with the corporate limits of New Braunfels being district one. In 1857, the Comal County Commissioners Court apportioned state funds to the several schools functioning. It was not until 1908 that funds from taxation would be used for equipment in school buildings. By this time, the rural schools in Comal County were already established as settlements spread out from New Braunfels.

Rural schools organized boards of trustees and the first trustees for the Jacobs Creek School included Gottfried Rohde, Carl Baetge, W. Schlather, Adolph Otto, Oskar Friedrich, J. Pantermuehl, Alton Kanz, John Marschall, F. Pantermuehl and F. Krause. The school was incorporated in October of 1867. Carl Pantermuehl was the third teacher and the builder of the Jacobs Creek teacherage in 1870.

The Jacobs Creek School later was incorporated into the Mountain Valley School District and ceased to be a school but the teacherage became a home for several generations of Pantermuehls and others to follow.

In 1978, Robert and Bess Story fell in love with and purchased the small cabin and restored it. They also added their own living quarters while preserving the charm of the structure. It is likely that the 150-year-old teacherage would not be standing today if it had not been restored by them. Members of the Comal County Historical Commission along with Pantermuehl family descendants, helped Bess research the property and write the story of the home and its contribution to the history of Comal County. The cabin is located at 12794 River Road and can be seen while passing by on a scenic journey.

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Recently I had an opportunity to practice my investigative reporting skills. I’m not adventurous enough to be a real investigative reporter but every once in a while something piques my curiosity and I’m off on an adventure. Reading a newspaper article by Oscar Haas that he wrote 45 years ago about Altgelt Pond got me started.

Never having heard of the pond before, I started looking and found very little. The story was very interesting but gave me sketchy clues about where this pond was located. Clue #1 was that it was four miles west of New Braunfels on the Dry Comal Creek. After several dry runs, my husband and I started over at the Plaza, went out Landa St., turned right before the overpass, turned left on Loop 337, heading toward the Dry Comal Creek area. Sure enough, large patches of trees on the right side of the loop led us to a little turn-in right after McCoys Lumber and Holiday Marine Boat Supplies. There was the River City Range and right there as you drive in on the left side of the short drive is Altgelt Pond. The pond has a chain-link fence around it but it is visible.

Johnny Rodriguez, a native of New Braunfels, owns the River City Range, a seven acre miniature golf course, two driving ranges, practice facility, batting cages, and sanded and lighted volleyball courts. There is a bar with several television sets, pool table, and ping pong table. Rodriguez bought the property five years ago.

Stories handed down by old-timers in the area tell of very big fish and that the pond was a favorite fishing spot. The pond has never dried up. Stories of the pond go back to the beginning of the settlement. Occasionally alligators were sighted in the Comal River and thought to be from the Dry Comal. Rodriguez said that even through the last drought in Comal County, the pool remained full. Other pools and tanks in the area dried up. It is estimated that the pool is at least 60 feet deep but was impossible to measure. Imagine the difficulty of measuring the depth of a spring-fed pool.

No one knows what name the pond had in the past. If it was named after the owners, it could have been Veramendi Pond, Prince Carl Pond, Meusebach Pond, Ernst Coreth Pond and finally Altgelt Pond. Probably the Native Americans had a name for it. According to Haas, there were several different names given to the pond, such as “Blue Hole” and “Bottomless Hole”. Early settlers called it “Der Teich”, meaning The Pond in German. This pond may be bottomless but it is not blue. It’s hard to imagine it as ever being described as blue. It’s green with algae and looks like it could be a great setting for one of the swamp movies. I imagine the snakes love it.

One of the first owners of the land on which the pond was located was John O. Meusebach, successor to Prince Carl as head of the Adelsverein in Texas. When Meusebach came to New Braunfels to take the place of Prince Carl, he came with a contract signed by Count Castell, president of the German Emigration Company. The contract stated that Meusebach would receive 500 acres of the company’s land of his choosing. In June, 1847, Meusebach chose a 280 acre plot where the pond was located.

Six months later he sold the tract to Count Ernst Coreth for $3,266 including a house, two cedar log cabins, farm implements, garden seeds, ploughed land, ditches and fences.

Meusebach married Miss Agnes Coreth, oldest daughter of Count Ernst and Countess Agnes Coreth on Sept. 26, 1852. For a brief time the Meusebachs lived at Hueco Springs and later founded Loyal Valley. Agnes Meusebach’s parents, Count and Countess Coreth, came with their six children to Texas in the fall of 1846 on the ship York, an emigrant sailing ship out of Antwerp. Five more children were born in Texas. The last child, Otilie, was born in 1858 and married Hermann Altgelt in 1879. The obituary of Mrs. Agnes Coreth states that the family after its arrival in Texas “went on to Fredericksburg, returned to NB and lived on a farm later known as the Altgelt Farm, which has the famous Altgelt Pond on it.” (Oscar Haas said that the pond was owned by E.R. Teinert in 1970.) It now belongs to Johnny Rodriguez.

Rochette Coreth, son of Franz Coreth and the grandson of Ernst and Agnes Coreth, told Oscar Haas a story about Altgelt Pond. He said that when his grandfather owned the land on which the pond was located, he used the pond for irrigation. There was a certain special kind of clay that he had hauled in by mule carts and placed the clay around the outside of the pond to build it up. He was able to use the flow of the pond for irrigation purposes. The water was then above the level of the surrounding fields and it was possible to use gravity flow to irrigate. The pond became the object of a riparian (water) rights suit. Haas said that a mill owner farther down the Comal Creek had been using the overflow of the pond to turn a waterwheel for his mill. When Coreth dammed it up, water no longer flowed to his mill. The mill owner, and Haas did not name the person, filed suit against Coreth and the suit eventually went to the Texas Supreme Court. The court ruled in favor of Coreth’s rights.

The whole area on which Altgelt Pond is located has its unusual features whether for agricultural purposes or industry. Some old prominent names connected with this land were Meusebach, Altgelt, Coreth, Ogden, Eikel and especially Dittlinger who was the founder of the settlement of Dittlinger in the early 1900s. He and I.A. Ogden began a rock-crushing business on a large scale that has grown to what it is today. Dittlinger created a settlement of houses,a school, a church, stores, and a dance hall for workers at “Las Calera”, or The Lime as it was called by the inhabitants.

The settlement of Dittlinger is no more, agriculture in the area is sparse, but Der Teich refuses to go away. Come to think of it, I might be able to start a new career in investigative journalism.

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