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FOLKLORE:
Miss Effie Cowan, P. W.
McLennan County, Texas,
District No. 8.
No. of words: 1600
File No. 240.
Page No. I.
Reference:
Interview with Mrs. Ernestine Weiss Faudie, Riesel,Texas.
(White pioneer)
"I was born in Dembaw Province, Possen, Germany. My father was
named Frederich Weiss, and followed his ancestor Louis Weiss, who
came with the colony that settled at Fredericksburg, Texas. My
father settled near Brenham, Texas, in the year 1853. The year that
I was born, as I was a five month old infant when they left Germany.
"There were farms and ranches where they settled and over at the
colony of Fredericksburg there was quite a little town, I have the
list of names of the men who were in business, among them was Louis
Weiss who was a tinner, the records show that thirty eight men oper..
ated ten different types of industrial business in the town: This
town and New Braunfels were the main German settlements when my
father came to Texas in 1853. The Germans around Brenham had drifted
from these places to other settlements.
"To the colony at Brenham my father came and this is where I
was raised; we had the ordinary little schools and the teachers were
mostly the one teacher schools. They were paid very little but then
it was something to even have a school. So it is not surprising
that the young people married early and raised their families in large
numbers, to what they do now.
"I was seventeen when I married William Hamburg. We came to the
little settlement called Sandy Creek where the town of Riesel is
today, but at that time there was nothing but ranches and the farLs
over near the Brazos river, We lived there for a few years and the
FORE:
Miss Effie Cowan, P. W.
McLennan.County„ Texas,
District No. SA
File No. 240..
Page No. 2.
grasshoppers came and ate up our crops, so we moved back to Brenham
and lived there for twelve years. Then in 1890 we came back to this
part of the country and lived at the Perry settlement until late years..
"I reared nine children by my first husband, they are; Mrs, John
Scharlach who has lived by the Methodist Church in the Myers settle-
ment on the Mart.Waco road, for the past forty years; Mrs. Fred
Witting of Perry, deceased; and Mrs. Louis Bohmfalk,1Whose husband
was a Methodist minister, now deceased; Mrs. Arthur Grebe of Mart
and William Hamburg and Albert, of Dallas; Mrs. Ida Busse and another
son Fred of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
"My .first husband died in 1900 and in 1905 I married Judge J.
Faudie who is living with me now. My father had two brothers to come
with him from Germany and were in the Confederate army. Their names
were August and Fritz Weiss. They were sent back home from the war
on a furlough but had to return and August was captured by the Yankees
and taken prisioner and made to walk all the way to the prison. He
was -later exchanged and came home. The other brother Fritz, came
home after the war was over and took tubercolosis and died from this
which he .contracted in the army.
"When any of the soldiers on either side came thro our place they
took anything they could find, the rebels, felt that they had a right
to it for they were fighting for us. They took °dr horses and killed
our hogs and cows to eat, and took our corn. When the blockade was
on and we could not get coffee we made it out of sweet potatoes. We
cut them up and dried them and boiled them and drank this for coffee.
FOLKLORE:
Miss Effie Cowan, P. W.
McLennan County, Texas,
District No. 8.
File No. 240.
Page No. 3.
"There was a grist mill close by our place and they ground the
meal real fine and crushed it and called it flour; anyway we made our
light bread out of this ground and crushed corn. We cooked over a
fire place with a big dutch oven. We spun and wove the cotton thread
to make our clothes. And speaking of the soldiers I remember an
incident that is amusing now but at the time, to the neighbor it was
anything but amusing. When a group of soldiers passed this neighbors,
she tied a hog to the bed post so they would not see it, but they
stopped for a drink of water and heard the hog grunting and so came
into the room and took the hog and barbecued it, out in the year and
ate it uefore the neighbor's very eyes.
"When we first came to this country we lived in a log cabin, but
we had it made good and comfortable and we did not mind that; we were
so ha py to have all the land that we could cultivate and the stock
which was so plentiful, so different from where we lived in Germany.
When the war, which they called the Civil War, came I remember that
my brother-in-law, Henry Hamburg, did not want to fight, as he did
not baieve in war and so he went to Uexico and then up to the North
Where he stayed until the war was over.
"My family came to the Perry settlement in 1820 and there was a
big ranchacalled the Stone Ranch, they had lots of cattle and horses
and the cowboys would round up the cattle twice a year and take them
to the markets. I think they took them to Heuston or Galveston and
shipped them by way of the Gulf to New York and the foreign markets,
We lived in the Schlimbech settlement; the community was thinly
FOLKLORE:
Vtas Effie Cowan, P. W.
McLennan County, Texas,
District No. 8.
File No. 240.
Page No. 4.
settled but we were a settlement of people from the old country and
we kept up our interest, thro the papers in the old country, and our
way of living, also our mother tongue and so we did not feel so iso-
lated from Germany altho we became maturalized American citizens soon
after coming to this country.
"I will tell you the story of the Indianola flood that came in
1875. 15T brother-in-law who did not go to the war, Henry Hamburg, came
back when it was over and became a Methodist minister, (most of the
churches were either Lutheran or Methodist then). He was in charge
of the iethodist *church at this place when the big storm came, he and
his wife both were drowned and most of the inhabitants. At that time
and during the Civil War, Indianola was an important port of Texas and
it meazit to Texas, what Galvestan does to us now.
"There were just a few of the buildings left when the storm was
over. A. few feet cf the outside wall was all that remained of the
once big denartElent store of Lichtenstein's and Alexander's. After
the flood Mrs. Lichenstein moved to Corpus Christi and went into
business. The court house, which in those days was at least fifty or
sixty feet from the bay, has later been washed almost entirely away by
the water of Vatagorda Bay. It is said that the walls of these two
buildings and s few crumbling ceident cisterns and a few old safes that
were in the store is all that is left as a reminder of the once second
most important port of Texas.
"The story of Indianola rea6s like a story book for children. They
claim that La Salle was the first to make a camp there while he was
trying to find the mouth of the Vississippi River. However, it was made
FOLKLOREs
Miss Effie Cowan, P. W.
McLennan County, Texas.
District No. 8.
File No. 240.
Page No. 5.
the County seat of Calhoun County in 1846. ?any of the buildings
and underground cisterns were ,ade of concrets so this is why those
the storm left stood. It was said that the stage left twice a week
for California and the prairie schooners carried the overland freight
and the organ Line steamers were used for passengers and freight
by water.
"Another story is that gold and silver bullion was brought from
Chihuahua, Mexico, for shipment to the nunt at New Orleans. Instead of
the horses and carriages the ox -wagons were familiar sights on the
streets of this little coast town. It is said that hides and tallow
were among the more important commodities. After the cattle were
killed and sinner the carcases were ahuled beyond the city limits and
dumped, and the .resh beef was used for ftttening hogs and the people
in the town were relcome to all the meat they z,anted at the slaughter
h use.
"Natural ice from New England was shipped b steamer from Boston,
army goods were sh_pped from Baltimore thro Indianola to the forts
at El Paso and San Antonio. The number of people in the tcwn in 1875
were close to 3,500 and town lots sold for a good price. So the town
was one of the iest in Texas until Sept. 16, 1875 when the tropical
storm came. The citizens hurried to the bus ness buildings and private
houses that were known to be the stoutest, but only a few escaped With
their lives.
"It was said that many were forced out of the second stories when
the water rose in them and had to ek safety in hastily constructed
rafts which they made from the sections of the floors and walls of the
houses they were in. Some of them were thotOltrul enough to hays ropes
FOLKLORRI
Miss Sffie Cowan, P. W.
McLennan County, Texas,
Distri t No. ST,
File No. 240.
Page No. 6.
and they were lashed to the rafts by them, but many were drowned when
the buildings they were in °cline ed and the peoele were crushed or
droened.
"There were ennY stories of heroism that were told by those who
were saeod. They tole aeout the two prisoners named William Taylor
and Joe Blackbernl who were both up for first degree murder. They
had been pineee in the court house end during the height of the storm
both frequeetly swae, thro tLe court house winde s to rescue some
drowning eerson. efter the "item was over desolation met the eye
everywhere. Ver brothereinelaw, his family, and his home had dissappeared
and were never seen again, altho my husband hoped for months to hear
of him.
"Capital was tlmid abc •t nvostng gen and eost of those who
livee. tTre thls stem eoved away to oecepe another like fate. And so
when the second hurricane came in 1'786 and was aid to be even greater
intensity the few people who were 'left read the signs in time to
evacuate the town and tee havoc was not as destrective to the lives cf
tee inhebitants.
"After the storm of 1P86 the old port of Indianola was abandoned.
heve told you this true story of the coastal storms to show you
what the old pioneers had to contend with, not only the pests of the
insects on their crops, or the hardships of the lack of the comforts
of life, but tee very eleeente of nature, the drouths, the floods,
and the ensettled condition of the coentry, even to eesperadoes and
norderero but never for an instant did we lose .cur faith in the future
FOLKLORE:
Miss Effie Cowan, P. W.
McLennan County, Texas,
District ,o. 8.
File No. 240.
Page No. 7.
which was always before us, to look into when the time should cetr.e
when we could lie down to our sleep and not feel that awy calamity
would Lefall us.
"And now in my old age I look back over the ppst rom the time that
can reLeInbor eind think of the many friends and kinsman who came over
here from the old country, and who have passed on to the far away land
and I say. In my heart to them .&l
"Auf..weider.se—hen."
(Till we meet ataint).