Frelsburg
Frelsburg, Colorado County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First German settlement in Colorado County. Founded in 1837 by William Frels who immigrated to Texas in 1834 and fought for Independence, 1835-1836. Proposed site of Hermann University, first institution of highter learning sponsored by Germans. Chartered by the Republic of Texas in 1844, but never established.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Frelsburg was the first German settlement in Colorado County, founded in 1837 by William Frels, who had come to Texas in 1834 and fought in its war for independence. The little colony was chosen as the proposed home of Hermann University, the first German-sponsored institution of higher learning in Texas, chartered by the Republic in 1844 though never actually built. Frelsburg endures as a landmark of early German settlement on the Texas frontier.
Why it matters
Frelsburg marks the beginning of the German immigration that transformed central Texas, and its stillborn university reflects the high educational ambitions those settlers carried west.
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Related people
- · William Frels
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Trinity Lutheran Church of Frelsburg
Frelsburg, TX
German immigrant William Frels reached Texas in 1834 and settled among fellow pioneers whose spiritual needs were met by circuit-riding frontier pastors. In 1855 he gave land for a church and cemetery, and the Rev. C. Roehm organized the congregation, whose ministers long doubled as day-school teachers. The congregation later helped found the American Lutheran Church and shifted to English-language services in 1932.
Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church
Frelsburg, TX
German Catholic immigrants who reached this corner of Colorado County in the early 1830s founded Saints Peter and Paul about 1843, at first worshiping under itinerant 'saddle-bag' priests who rode a vast circuit. A log sanctuary rose in 1844, an official parish followed in 1847, and in 1854 Bishop John Odin and Father Gury established here the first Catholic seminary in Texas. Rebuilt repeatedly after storms and an 1926 fire, the present 1927–28 sanctuary blends classical columns and dentils with Gothic windows.
Zimmerscheidt-Leyendecker Cemetery
Columbus, TX
Frederick and Margaret Zimmerscheidt immigrated from Germany to Mexican Texas in 1832, later joined by their daughter Josephine and her husband Johann Leyendecker, whose glowing letters home helped draw other German emigrants to the region. The family championed local education and, choosing to bury their dead near home rather than in nearby Frelsburg, established this family cemetery in 1856. Still in use by descendants who gather each year, it holds soldiers, public officials, and horticulturist J. F. Leyendecker of the noted Pearfield nursery.
Pagel Cemetery
Fayetteville, TX
Gottfried and Friedrike Pagel came to Texas from Pomerania in 1850 with eight children, buying land in this vicinity in 1852; Friedrike died the next year after the birth of her ninth child. Their son Wilhelm built a stone house, ran a store, and served as first postmaster of the community then called Rock House, and his 1873 burial on the family land became the first marked grave in what grew into Pagel Cemetery. Many neighbors of German heritage joined the Pagels here, and their descendants still maintain the grounds.