Hermann Seele

Seele's public life went well beyond the schoolroom. Admitted to the bar in 1855, he worked for the Democratic party against the nativist Know-Nothings, and during the Civil War served as a major in the Thirty-first Brigade of the state militia. In 1871 he organized the first state Teachers Conference, and his school became the model for the teachers' institutes required in 1872; he is credited with influencing the 1876 constitution's provision for independent school districts. His Sängerhaus of 1855, a brick hall beside the Comal, housed the singers and the town's dramatic society.

What the plaque says

Hermann Seele (April 14,1823 - March 18, 1902) A native of Hildesheim, Hanover, Germany, Hermann Seele came to Texas in 1843. He became the fist school teacher in New Braunfels on August 11,1845 when he held class for 15 pupils beneath elm trees at the foot of the hill. Selle helped organize first Protestant church, the newpaper "Zeitung," and several social and cultural clubs. He was first district clerk for Comal County,1846-54, state legislator,1863-65, justice of the peace, mayor, city alderman, and postmaster. A farmer,lawyer, and supporter of public education, Seele left written accounts of pioneer life in New Braunfels. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — steps away
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• Gruene Historic District — 3.0 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 13 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 18 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.

More markers nearby

• Sophienburg Hill — steps away
• International & Great Northern Railroad in New Braunfels — 0.3 mi
• First United Methodist Church — 0.3 mi
• Johann Michael Jahn — 0.3 mi