Austin, Macy, and grandmother Stephanie Bergquist checking out the marker commemorating the place where Hermann Seele taught the first school below Sophienburg Hill in 1845. This week 164 years ago, on August 11, 1845, Hermann Seele called to order the first school in New Braunfels under elm trees at the bottom of Sophienburg Hill. Fifteen children were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, English and German. The picture shows Austin and Macy Bergquist and their grandmother, Stephanie Bergquist checking out the marker commemorating the spot where the first school was taught on Coll St. ...

Hanging in the Sophienburg Museum is an original stone lithograph that is the first known view of early New Braunfels. The painting from which the lithograph was made was by an artist named Conrad Casper Rohrdorf in 1847. Most of you have seen this panorama, as it has been used in many publications and displays that have to do with our history. This lithograph entitled “Panorama der Stadt Neu-Braunfels” was purchased by the Citizens National Bank of NB from an Austin collector of rare maps and documents and given to the Sophienburg in 1986. Casper Rohrdorf was born in ...

You know that new movie about spending the night in a museum and the characters come alive? That would never happen in our Sophienburg Museum. Or would it? What if I was accidentally locked in our museum at closing time? Everyone leaves and the lights go off, leaving only the faint hum of the dehumidifier. Luckily, inside my purse I have a tiny but strong flashlight. (Just in case I’m locked in a museum) As my eyes become accustomed to the eerie dark inside, I’m suddenly aware that I’m not alone. I see shadows of ghostly apparitions wearing clothing from the past. Some of ...

An unforgettable event happened here in New Braunfels in 1905. Of course you would have to be at least 104 years old to have been there. I heard it from my parents who heard it from their parents. I’m talking about the day the President of the United States came to town. Never mind that he never got off the train and that he stayed but a few minutes. It was an unforgettable event that day on April 6, 1905, when President Theodore Roosevelt made a stop here on his train trip from Austin to San Antonio. When State Senator Joseph Faust found out that Roosevelt was coming to San Antonio ...

An unforgettable event happened here in New Braunfels in 1905. Of course you would have to be at least 104 years old to have been there. I heard it from my parents who heard it from their parents. I’m talking about the day the President of the United States came to town. Never mind that he never got off the train and that he stayed but a few minutes. It was an unforgettable event that day on April 6, 1905, when President Theodore Roosevelt made a stop here on his train trip from Austin to San Antonio. When State Senator Joseph Faust found out that Roosevelt was coming to San Antonio ...

Historically the first July 4th celebration in New Braunfels goes back to 1846.The emigrants had arrived only three months earlier on March 21, 1845 when Texas was still the Republic of Texas. Now in 1846 they could celebrate the national festival commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 because they had become a state of the United States. Maybe a little Texas history background: Texas became a republic in 1836 after a war with Mexico. Sam Houston was elected the first president of the Republic, and when Anson Jones was president in 1844, he called a special ...

Hey you NB history buffs out there, can you name some early founders? OK- Prince Carl, von Coll, Zink, Ervendberg, Lindheimer, Koester, Seele. Good. Now name some of the early women. Stumped? That’s because there is so little written about them. Recently I ran across a tribute to Luise Ervendberg, wife of Pastor Louis Ervendberg. It was written on the occasion of her death in 1887 by Hermann Seele and translated by Curt Schmidt. Maria Sophia Dorothea Luise Muench was born in Hannover, Germany in 1820. At age 17 she emigrated to America with her uncle. They settled in the Chicago area ...

Das deutsche Lied (German song) bound the early settlers together, kept their language alive, and was a constant companion through good times and bad. This love of music came with the emigrants from Germany to Texas. Just imagine what the music must have been like on the trek up from the coast to NB during the tragic year of 1846 when so many emigrants died and were buried along the way. “So nimm denn meine Hände” (So take my hands) was a popular and highly emotional song sung at funerals. It is still sung occasionally at First Protestant Church funerals and it is heart ...

On this exact day in 1944, the Jahn Furniture Co. properties on S. Seguin Ave. sold for the very first time by the Jahn family to J.D. Nixon. Since then the beautiful brick building changed hands many times, at one time a Piggly Wiggly grocery store owned by Jarvis Hillje. The Jahn Furniture Co. was no ordinary furniture company. On the exact spot, Johann Michael Jahn built his home. He had emigrated on the ship Hershel with the very first group of emigrants to settle in New Braunfels in 1845. Supposedly he arrived with 10 cents and a bag of handmade cabinet-making tools. Jahn was one of ...

In 1910 Professor F. E. Giesecke was teaching architecture at A&M College. He was the son of Capt. Julius Giesecke who was at one time former owner of the “Neu Braunfelser Zeitung”. Intending to buy property for a summer home, Prof. Giesecke bought 60+ acres on the Comal River including what would later become Camp Warnecke. There was a suspension foot bridge where the Garden St. Bridge is, making it possible to have access to and from town. The beautiful piece of property proved to be too large for a home, and so Dr. Giesecke established a summer school camp (Camp Comal) ...

Did you know that April was declared “Confederate History Month” by the Texas Legislature in 1999? I have little knowledge of Comal County’s involvement in the Civil War. That, however, is about to change because Wilfred Schlather has written a book about that very subject that will soon be for sale at Sophie’s Shop. The Sophienburg is very proud to sponsor his endeavor and all proceeds will go to the Museum and Archives. My knowledge of the Civil War in Comal County has been confined to the statue on the east side of Main Plaza and the saltpeter extracting plant in ...

Children don’t question whether it’s possible for rabbits to lay eggs. They just know that when they build a pretty nest of grass and flowers, the Osterhase (Easter rabbit) lays these beautiful multi-colored eggs. It’s the miracle of the beginning of life. Research says that Easter named after the ancient spring goddess Eastre whose earthly symbol was the hare. Being a pagan symbol, it was rejected by the more austere religious denominations until after the Civil War. With all the tragedy during that time, Easter became a symbol of renewal and hope. (Charles Panati, ...

Common denominators sometime bring people together who don’t expect to be. The common denominator in this tale is Sophie’s Shop at the Sophienburg. The people are Jane Felts Mauldin, Maurice Schmidt, and me. Here’s how it happened: I was in Sophie’s Shop when NB artist Jane Mauldin walked in with some of her prints of wildflowers and old local buildings. She sells them at the shop. She wanted to know if I had read Maurice Schmidt’s book called “A Life in Art”. It’s for sale in the shop. I had not but I definitely remembered Maurice Schmidt ...

John Meusebach, 1846 Baron Ottfried von Meusebach dropped his aristocratic title and became John Meusebach when he came to Texas in May of 1845. He was to be the Adelsverein’s second administrator of the German settlement of New Braunfels succeeding Prince Carl. The prince had departed just two months after the first emigrants arrived on March 21, 1845. Meusebach was left with the big problem of taking care of thousands of emigrants that were on their way from Germany. The problem was that funds were depleted. By June 1845, the next group of emigrants arrived followed by thousands ...