Herman and Willie Lehmann

Herman Lehmann's Apache (Nde) captor, Carnoviste, adopted him, and he became a warrior who ranged from the Guadalupe Mountains to Mexico. After Carnoviste's death he lived a year alone on the plains, then joined the Comanche (Numunuu), who called him Montechena, and was with the last Quahadi band to come in to Fort Sill. Back in Loyal Valley he would not eat pork or sleep in a bed. He married Fannie Light in 1890, received Oklahoma land as a Comanche, gave exhibitions of riding, roping and archery, and died in 1932.

What the plaque says

Herman and Willie Lehmann German immigrants Moritz and Auguste Lehmann settled along Squaw Creek (4 mi. W) in the 1850s. After Moritz's death, Auguste married Philip Buchmeier. On May 16, 1870, two of the Lehmann children, Herman (age 10) and Willie (age 8) were captured by Apache Indians. Willie was released after five days and returned home, but Herman remained with the Apache and Comanche Indians for eight years. He was returned to his family by U. S. soldiers in 1878 but maintained his ties to Quanah Parker's Comanche family, into which he had been adopted, for the remainder of his life. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area — 12 mi
  A dome of pink granite north of Fredericksburg that rises some 385 feet above Sandy Creek, creaks as it cools at night, and has drawn people for thousands of years.
• Fort Mason — 18 mi
  A reconstructed officers' quarters on Post Oak Hill above Mason, standing where the army's stone fort was taken apart by the town that grew up below it.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 19 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.
• Vereins Kirche and Main Street — 22 mi
  The octagonal Society Church on Fredericksburg's market square, rebuilt in stone in the 1930s, beside a main street laid out like a Rhine village.

More markers nearby

• Homesite of John O. Meusebach — 0.8 mi
• The Marschall-Meusebach Cemetery — 6.4 mi
• Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church — 6.6 mi
• Old Cherry Spring School (Das Alte Schulhaus) — 6.6 mi