What’s happening to the old house at 230 W. Mill St? I found out. Jeff and Denise Mund have bought the old Georg Pfeuffer house and they are restoring it. Records show that this is the sixth time that there have been major additions and renovations.

Ownership of the lot on which the house stands was conveyed to Johann Georg Pfeuffer in 1852 and it is assumed that the house was built shortly thereafter. It is one of the early houses in New Braunfels built with fachwerk walls, a custom brought from German architecture. One can see fachwerk construction in present day Germany. Casement windows with unique latches can be seen upstairs. Hand-hewn cedar beams throughout the house and wide cedar beams were used in the ceiling. The full basement contained the kitchen and has a brick floor. In the downstairs area are two original black walnut doors, a wood that was plentiful along the banks of the Guadalupe.

Johann Georg Pfeuffer was born in 1799 in Bavaria. He married Barbett (Barbara) Broschel in 1829 and six children were born to the couple.

Pfeuffer was a tanner and owned several tanneries in Germany. He was quite a prosperous businessman. The children were all educated and servants tended to their needs.

The family does not know why in 1845 Pfeuffer sold all his tanneries, uprooted his family, and signed up with the German Emigration Company to come to Texas. They were among the second group of emigrants and arrived in Galveston in November of 1845. From there the family took a schooner to Indianola.

A near tragedy occurred when they were put on an overloaded schooner. It sank in the bay outside of Indianola. The lives of the family were saved but most of their possessions were lost. Now they were virtually penniless and were stranded on the coast along with the hundreds of other emigrants. They didn’t arrive in New Braunfels until 1848. The 1850 Comal County census lists Georg as 51, Barbett as 44, Valentine as 18, Christopf as 16, Daniel as 12, Barbette as 9, and Anna Marie as 6. The oldest son, also named George, was 20 years old and wasn’t listed in this census. He was known to have moved to Corpus Christi at the time.

Sometime between 1852 and 1860, the elder Georg Pfeuffer began a tannery in the basement of his home on Mill St.( Source: “Texas and Texans”,1914 translation). Inquiring about the process of tanning, I asked Al Ludwig, the g-g grandson of Georg Pfeuffer and owner of Ludwig Leather Co. on Seguin Street. He said that the process was done by soaking the hide in tannin extracted from oak trees to produce leather that was soft and durable. The word Tanne is an old German word for oak or pine trees (hence the word Tannenbaum). How did this family survive with the tannery in the basement?

Family records state that Georg Pfeuffer was very opinionated about the politics of the day. He signed the petition in Comal County calling for secession. Four sons fought in the Civil War.

About that time the young Georg Pfeuffer returned to New Braunfels from Corpus. This Pfeuffer son became the most prominent in the family, as he was a Texas Senator and responsible for the capitol in Austin being constructed of Texas Granite. Later he became president of Texas A&M College. To read more about him, log on to Sophienburg.com Nov. 26, 2008.

Johann Georg Pfeuffer (Sr.) died in 1886. Thereafter the house was conveyed to the Baetge family. In 1942 Arthur Baetge as executor of the Baetge estate sold the house to Annie Lehman who, in turn, conveyed it to her son Leroy Lehman in 1954.

Leroy Lehman and his wife Agnes raised one son and four daughters in this home. Some changes were made to the home to accommodate their growing family. The August Koch map of 1881 shows the house without the side porch that the Lehmanns added. Ernest Lehman, son of the Leroy Lehmans, recently brought the original pillars to the Munds.

The City of New Braunfels designated the house as a historic landmark. All of us in New Braunfels benefit from restoration projects like the Munds have taken on.

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(Encore of article that first appeared November 26, 2008.)

By Myra Lee Adams Goff —

Recently I went to the Comal Cemetery to visit family and friends. Don’t tell me that I’m the only one that does that; someone brings the flowers! Since I started writing this column I have greatly increased the number of people that I know in the cemetery, particularly those born in the 19th century.

Take an over-all look at the cemetery and certain things stand out. One is the number of obelisks, particularly in the old section of the cemetery. The dictionary describes an obelisk as a four- sided stone monument that rises to the point at the top. Ancient Egyptians used to place obelisks at the entrance of tombs.

The granddaddy of obelisks in the Comal Cemetery is the one dedicated to Senator George Pfeuffer. This monument is 24 feet tall and towers over all the others. It was given in Pfeuffer’s honor by the Granite Association of Texas. Here’s the story:

In 1877 George Pfeuffer was appointed Comal County Judge, filling the unexpired term of Dr. Theodor Koester and was elected to that position in 1880. In 1882 he was elected to a seat in the Texas Senate. During his tenure, he led the fight within the Senate to have the State Capitol in Austin built of Texas granite instead of Georgian marble.  The obelisk is made of that Texas granite and that’s the reason for the memorial.

Pfeuffer had other irons in the fire besides politics; he owned a dry goods store in NB on the south corner of San Antonio St. and Castell Ave. After he died in 1886, the business was carried on by the family until the 1920s. The building is the one with the mural of Prince Carl on the side. Pfeuffer also owned a lumber yard in NB and other lumber yards elsewhere.

Pfeuffer as a young man worked for Ferguson and Hessler Dry Goods store. He was sent to Corpus Christi by Ferguson to tend to businesses in that city. There he met and married Susan Gravis. In 1861 when the Civil War broke out, they returned to NB because he felt his family would be safer here.

When Pfeuffer became County Judge, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of A&M College in Bryan. He is given credit for putting the finances back in order, allowing A&M to build its first dormitory, Pfeuffer Hall. Sophienburg President David Pfeuffer is George Pfeuffer’s g-g-g-grandson.

So many families have plots in the Comal Cemetery and if you know NB history, you will recognize the names of Ferdinand Lindheimer, Hermann Seele, the Hennes, Guenthers, Fausts, and the list goes on and on. Many of the older family plots have ornate iron fences and elaborate tombstones.

A practical and decorative grave covering can be seen scattered around the old cemetery section. I’m referring to the shell-covered graves. Made by H.T. Mordhurst, I found about 10, most of who died in the early 1900s. Mordhurst, born in Germany, came to NB in 1900 and began a business of producing concrete blocks for buildings, several of which are still in NB. He went into this business with Emil Heinen.

In the meantime, Mordhurst developed this technique of decorating graves. Using a wooden form to create a mound, he covered it with iron mesh, and then poured concrete into the mold. Cockleshells from the Texas coast were brought to NB by train in barrels. They were filled with cement and a wire was twisted inside before they were attached. Mordhurst died in 1928 and that was the end of the shell-covered graves.

There’s a lot of history out there — some we know and some we don’t.

“May they rest easy in their final abodes beneath hallowed soil, these hardy pioneers, these staunch characters who built a nation.” (From a Centennial editorial, Chas.W. Scruggs, Editor, New Braunfels Herald, 1946,)

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