HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Waddell-Dudensing-Bering Home

New Ulm, Austin County, Texas

Marker Inscription

F.B. Waddell built the front portion and loft of this house about 1842. When German-born William Dudensing (d. 1892) bought the property in 1873, he added rooms at the back. The porch was extended across the front by others in his family who owned the house until 1956. August C. Bering, III, a descendant of Germans who emigrated to Texas in 1846, purchased (1968), enlarged, and restored the structure. Staircase features original stenciled trim. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1974

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

F.B. Waddell built the front of this house around 1842, during the days of the Republic of Texas. German-born William Dudensing bought it in 1873 and enlarged it, and his family held it into the 1950s; a descendant of Germans who came to Texas in 1846 later restored the structure, which still bears its original stenciled staircase trim.

Why it matters

Passing through Anglo Republic-era and German immigrant hands, the home reflects the layered settlement of central Texas across more than a century.

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Related people

  • · F.B. Waddell
  • · William Dudensing
  • · August C. Bering III

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Mary Theresa Juergens

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German immigrants Conrad and Mary Theresa Juergens reached Texas in 1833 and built a cabin near this site. When the Texas Revolution sent settlers fleeing in the 1836 Runaway Scrape, the family stayed — and was raided by Karankawa people. Conrad was wounded and the pregnant Mary was carried off with two stepsons; she bore a daughter, Jane Margret, in captivity before mother and child were ransomed at a Red River trading post. Mary later remarried and died in Ohio in 1891.

Frnka Family Cemetery

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In 1926, Czech immigrants Jan Jindrich Frnka and his wife Cecilie set aside land near New Ulm for a family burial ground and placed it in the care of three trustees. The couple raised thirteen children, and all but one daughter are buried here alongside most of their spouses, beneath obelisks, curbed plots, and grave slabs. The cemetery still serves the family's descendants today.

Josef Lidumil Leshikar

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Born on the Czech-Moravian border in 1806 and trained as a tailor, Josef Lidumil Leshikar became a voice for political freedom during the revolutions of 1848. In 1853 he led a party of immigrants to the new Czech settlements of Austin County, Texas. A committed opponent of slavery, he used Czech and American newspapers to argue against secession and civil war even as his adopted state marched the other way.

New Ulm Cemetery

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Founded in 1841 as Duff's Settlement for landholder James C. Duff, this Austin County community was renamed New Ulm in 1853 to honor the German city many settlers had left behind. When the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad laid tracks a mile south in 1892, the town center shifted, but the old cemetery—its earliest recorded burial dating to 1853—remained. Among those interred is Josef Lidumil Lesikar, a leader in bringing early Czech settlers to America.