Sisterdale is an

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

farming and ranching community established in 1847 and located north of

Boerne Boerne ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kendall County, Texas, in the Texas Hill Country. Boerne is known for its German-Texan history, named in honor of German author and satirist Ludwig Börne by the German Founders of the town. The popu ...

in Kendall County, in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. The community is located in the valley of Sister Creek. The elevation is .

Community

Sisterdale was settled in 1847 by

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

surveyor and free thinker Nicolaus Zink. Originally part of

Comal County Comal County ( ) is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 161,501. Comal County is known for its rich German-Texan and European history. Its county seat is New Braunfels. ...

, Sisterdale became part of Kendall County when the latter was formed in 1862. Among the settlers were German pioneers Fritz and

Betty Holekamp Betty Holekamp (1826–1902) was a German colonist and pioneer in Texas. She is recognized for several "firsts" as a Texas pioneer, such as being the first to sew an American flag upon Texas's acceptance into the Union, and thus is known as the Be ...

, geographer

Ernst Kapp Ernst Christian Kapp (15 October 1808 – 30 January 1896) was a German-American philosopher of technology and geographer, and a follower of Carl Ritter. He was prosecuted for sedition in the late 1840s for publishing a small article entitled 'De ...

;

Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...

Premier progeny Baron Ottomar von Behr; journalist

Carl Adolph Douai Karl Daniel Adolf Douai (1819 – 1888), known to his peers as "Adolf", was a German Texan teacher as well as a socialist and Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist newspaper editor. Douai was driven from Texas in 1856 due to his published ...

; August Siemering who later founded the ''San Antonio Express News''; author, journalist and diplomat

Julius Fröbel Carl Ferdinand Julius Fröbel (16 July 1805 – 7 November 1893) was a German geologist and mineralogist, journalist, and democratic revolutionary already during the ''Vormärz'' era. He was active in Germany, Switzerland, the United States and S ...

; future

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...

financial wizard Gustav Theissen; and Edgar von Westphalen, Roe Hampton University-London Roe Hampton University-London brother to

Jenny von Westphalen Johanna Bertha Julie Jenny Edle von Westphalen (12 February 18142 December 1881) was a German theatre critic and political activist. She married the philosopher and political economist Karl Marx in 1843. Background Jenny von Westphalen was bor ...

who was married to

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

. The first child born in Sisterdale (and in Kendall County) was Julius Holekamp on June 10, 1849, to Fritz and Betty Holekamp. One notable early colonist was

Edward Degener Edward Degener (October 20, 1809 – September 11, 1890) was a German-born American politician. He was a Republican U.S. Representative from Texas during the Reconstruction era. Originally from Germany, Degener moved to the United States ...

, future

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...

from

during the

Reconstruction era The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...

. Degener's sons Hugo and Hilmar died during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

in the

Nueces massacre The Nueces Massacre, also known as the Massacre on the Nueces, was a violent confrontation between Confederate soldiers and German Texans on August 10, 1862, in Kinney County, Texas US. Many first-generation immigrants from Germany settled in Cen ...

. To honor their memory, Degener along with Eduard Steves and William Heuermann purchased land for the establishment of the German-language

Treue der Union Monument The German-American Treue der Union Monument (Loyalty to the Union), is located in the Kendall County community of Comfort in the U.S. state of Texas. It was dedicated on August 10, 1866 to commemorate the German-Texans who died at the 1862 Nuece ...

, which was built in 1866 and listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1978. Also among the settlers was Julius Dresel (or Dressel), a member of the German Chambers of Deputies, The Wine Institute who was the first to plant a Sisterdale vineyard. His brother Emil Dresel and partner Jacob Gundlach later established the Rhein Farm Vineyard in

Sonoma, California Sonoma is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Sonoma is one of the principal cities of California's Wine Country and the center of the Sonoma Valley AVA. Sonoma's p ...

. Julius later moved to

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

. Upon the death of brother Emil, who bequeathed Julius his share of the Sonoma vineyard, Julius moved his family to California. The community received a post office in 1851, and Ottomar W. Behr was the first postmaster. Sisterdale eventually had a school house, a gas station-garage, a general store, a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); a ...

, and a factory for making cypress shingles. The old 1885 cotton gin in Sisterdale has been restored and is today home to Sister Creek Vineyards.

Historical population

Source: Texas Escapes

Free thinkers

Sisterdale was one of the

Latin Settlement A Latin settlement (German: ''Lateinische Kolonie'') is a community founded by German immigrants to the United States in the 1840s. Most of these were in Texas, but there were "Latin Settlements" in other states as well. These German intellectuals, ...

s, resulting from the

Revolutions of 1848 in the German states In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

. Those who came were

Forty-Eighters The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the Revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In the German Confederation, the Forty-Eighters favoured unification of Germany, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human r ...

, intellectual liberal abolitionists who enjoyed conversing in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and believed in utopian ideals that guaranteed basic human rights to all. Freethinkers Association of Central Texas They reveled in passionate conversations about literature, music and philosophy. The free thinkers petitioned the

Texas Legislature The Texas Legislature is the state legislature of the US state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a powerful ...

in 1853 for a charter to operate a German-English college to be built at Sisterdale, but the petition did not come to fruition. Irene Marschall King, granddaughter of John O. Meusebach, remembered how her grandfather enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of visits to Sisterdale, where a man of his aristocratic background could relate to such cultured free thought discourse, and where the air filled with concert music, singing, dancing and an ambience of general ''

Gemütlichkeit ''Gemütlichkeit'' () is a German-language word used to convey the idea of a state or feeling of warmth, friendliness, and good cheer. Other qualities encompassed by the term include cosiness, peace of mind, and a sense of belonging and well ...

''. In 1853, August Siemering was elected secretary, and Ernst Kapp the president, of the freethinker

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

organization german: Der Freie Verein, label=none (The Free Society), University of the Incarnate Word which called for a meeting of abolitionist German Texans Texas State Historical Association in conjunction with the May 14, 1854, Staats- Saengerfest (State Singing Festival) in

. Wilhelm Victor Keidel was elected vice president of the convention, which adopted a political, social and religious platform, The Texas State Historical Association including:

1) Equal pay for equal work; 2) Direct election of the President of the United States; 3) Abolition of
capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
; 4) Slavery is an evil, the abolition of which is a requirement of democratic principles...; 5) Free schools – including universities – supported by the state, without religious influence; and 6) Total separation of church and state.

One of the most tragic episodes in the history of Kendall County happened in 1862 after Texas joined the Confederacy. The Confederacy considered the free thinkers of Sisterdale and like communities to be a threat. A number of Kendall County Germans became

conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...

s to the military draft. Confederate authorities reacted by imposing

martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Marti ...

on central Texas. 61 conscientious objectors attempted to flee to Mexico. Confederate irregular James Duff and his Duff's Partisan Rangers pursued them. At the

Nueces River The Nueces River is a river in the U.S. state of Texas, about long. It drains a region in central and southern Texas southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico. It is the southernmost major river in Texas northeast of the Rio Grande. ''Nueces'' ...

, 34 were killed, and some executed after being taken prisoner. In 1866, Kendall County erected the

("Loyalty to the Union") monument TexGenWeb, Kendall Co dedicated to the German Texans slain at the

Darmstadt Society of Forty

Some of the early settlers in Sisterdale migrated from the collapsed

Fisher–Miller Land Grant The Fisher–Miller Land Grant was part of an early colonization effort of the Republic of Texas. Its 3,878,000 acres covered between the Llano River and Colorado River (Texas), Colorado River. Originally granted to Henry Francis Fisher and Burcha ...

experimental colonies of the Darmstadt Society of Forty.

Sisterdale Valley District

The Sisterdale Valley District is a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

in Sisterdale, Texas that was listed on the U.S.

in 1975. It included 15

contributing buildings In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

and six other

contributing structures In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

. The historic buildings include an 1890s dance hall. Various sources discuss Sisterdale.

Photo gallery

File:Sisterdale3.JPG, Grounds of the Sisterdale Dance Hall & Opera House File:Sisterdale9.JPG, Original Settler Cabin Circa 1859 File:Sisterdale13.JPG, Sisterdale Dance Hall & Opera House File:Sisterdale TX Winery.jpg, Sister Creek Vineyards File:Sisterdale TX Cemetery.jpg, Sisterdale Cemetery at RM 473 and 1376 File:SisterdaleLine (1 of 1).jpg, Sisterdale Bar File:House-animated.gif, Marlowe Candle Company

References

External links

Kendall County official website

Sisterdale Creek Vineyards
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Texas German-American history German-American culture in Texas Populated places established in 1847 Freethought in the United States Latin Settlement Unincorporated communities in Kendall County, Texas Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas 1847 establishments in Texas National Register of Historic Places in Kendall County, Texas