John O. Meusebach

“ But aside from the form of the contract, there is not the least doubt but that the intention of the Company to give to each family only 320 acres and to each single man only 160 acres, and to keep the surplus for themselves, was fully understood by both parties. No family nor single man were accepted as emigrants of the Company, or shipped by them, unless they had signed that original contract, of which I have annexed a copy, and the agent of the Company, either at the shipping places or at headquarters in Germany signed invariably the same contract with the emigrants. ”

“ Whenever new emigrants arrived at New Braunfels they were dispatched, if possible, without delay to the new settlement Fredericksburg, which was then considered the healthiest place. In Houston H. F. Fisher introduced to me, under the name of Dr. Schubert, a man of good appearance, strongly recommending him as a very good doctor and an experienced colonisator. He had just come down with his outfit from Brushy or San Gabriel, where Fisher said that he had started a colony, but had to move on account of Indians. ”

“ When the petition of Fisher & Miller, to legalize these certificates, came up in the House of Representatives, in the spring of 1852, the Hon. Sam Maverick, of Bexar, got up with a fulminant speech, which—thundering that you could hear it in both houses—he concluded with the following words:
"They say (Fisher & Miller) that they got a judgment; it is a snap judgment; gotten up in a dark corner; it is a fraud, a fraud, a fraud!"
The House did reject the petition.—At that time the German Emigration Company had yet some agents or trustees ”

“ Lifted the attachment by paying the claim out of my credit under the condition that he would urge the directory in Europe to send immediately, and without waiting for report, a credit twice as large as I had along, because the items picked up by me on the road in traveling, showed already an indebtedness to that amount. I told him that the welfare of the emigrants depended for the present on the means of the Company who had promised to supply them in provisions until they could raise a crop, and to furnish them with everything necessary to make a crop either for pay or on a credit. ”

“ The transportation to colony for not less than $20 to $30. The houses had to be built in Texas, not in Germany. The expenses for transportation were to be made in Texas. The money for both items should have been at disposal in Texas, before the arrival of emigrants.
Having failed to get from the Prince in Galveston, any reliable information in regard to the financial operations of the Company and their debts, and having been referred again to the treasurer at New Braunfels, who had declared that he could not make a full statement, I had to go to work at it myself. ”

“ The unacclimated emigrants suffered the most. 321 died at Indianola and on the road (children included) according to the official list. Counted with those who died afterwards at New Braunfels and Fredericksburg, supposed from sickness contracted below, the total did not much overrun 800 or 850. In March I went up from Galveston to Houston, and succeeded in making a contract with Torrey Bros, for a train, or trains, to be started from Indianola to New Braunfels for transporting our emigrants to the latter place. ”

“ At full moon we were at the agreed spot on the lower San Saba, about 25 miles above its mouth into Colorado river, made a treaty with the head chiefs Buffalo Hump, Santa Anna and Mopechucope, and their people, for all the western bands of Comanches, promised them $3000 worth of presents, for which consideration they on their part promised and agreed not to disturb our surveyors in their work, nor to do any harm to our colonists. ”

“ In place of ordering their own agent (Prince Solms) then residing in Texas, to examine personally the territory in question and to report, the leading director in Europe relied exclusively, and with a credulity hardly to be conceived, on the statements of the vendor, who had an interest to sell as quick as possible, and therefore to make it plausible that with 200,000 florins, at 40c., the whole colonization of 6000 families and all the promises to the emigrants, based on erroneous calculations, could be carried out. ”

“ But new, unbounded expenses, resulting from unbounded promises, had to be added to it.—I have anticipated events, and will have to return to Galveston, where I was, in February, in the greatest distress. The main thing was to keep the emigrants in provisions and to get provisions on a credit. Next, any team that could be directed to Indianola was engaged at any price. ”

“ It states that sickness and death prevail in Indianola and New Braunfels, and that the Company does not come up to their promise to remove the emigrants upwards. We would have risked everything if we could not say we have acted immediately as soon as we heard how matters stood. ”

“ Of the lands which the Company has acquired for their German emigrants, it is to be mentioned that they heretofore belonged to Fisher, from whom the Company has bought them. It is an area of 3,878,000 acres, of which 640,000 acres are in one connected body. ”

“ Coll. Doc. p. 67: "The sum of 200,000 florins ($80,000) is more than sufficient to defray the expenses of the first expendition (the 700 shipped in 1844) and to care for their settlement till they can exist by their own exertions."
For the future all expenses will be covered by the deposits of the emigrants.
"Of the deposit of a single emigrant at 300 fl., the Company receives 150 fl. ”