Jacob Neffendorf

Neffendorf sailed for a colony planned by German nobles. Twenty-one of them organized the Adelsverein provisionally at Biebrich on the Rhine on April 20, 1842, drawn by books praising the liberty and land of Texas. Their agents, counts Boos-Waldeck and Alt-Leiningen, refused Sam Houston's offer of frontier land and in January 1843 bought a league near Industry, Nassau Farm. Reorganized as a joint-stock company in June 1843, the society was formally constituted on March 25, 1844, and that June bought colonization rights from Henry Francis Fisher. Its first immigrants landed near Carlshafen in December 1844.

What the plaque says

JACOB NEFFENDORF BORN IN REDERT, NASSAU, GERMANY, JACOB NEFFENDORF (1822-1910) CAME TO TEXAS IN 1845 ABOARD THE BARQUE NEPTUNE. HE WAS IN THE GROUP WHO SURVEYED THE FREDERICKSBURG TOWNSITE AND ALSO HELPED MOVE FAMILIES HERE FROM NEW BRAUNFELS IN 1846. SETTLERS RECEIVED A 100 BY 200 FOOT TOWN LOT AND A 10-ACRE OUTLOT FOR FARMING. NEFFENDORF BUILT A LOG CABIN ON HIS TOWN LOT ON CREEK STREET AND LIVED THERE WHILE CLEARING HIS OUTLOT NEAR THE KREUZBERG (CROSS MOUNTAIN). HE BOUGHT NEARBY OUTLOTS UNTIL ACCUMULATING MORE THAN 200 ACRES IN THIS VICINITY. JACOB MARRIED KATHERINA DIETZ (1828-1904) IN AUGUST 1850; THE COUPLE RAISED EIGHT CHILDREN IN THEIR HOME NEAR THIS SITE. JACOB SERVED AS GILLESPIE COUNTY TREASURER IN 1874-76. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vereins Kirche and Main Street — 1.4 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.
• National Museum of the Pacific War — 1.7 mi
  A museum of the war in the Pacific in Chester Nimitz's hometown, dedicated at his request to the two million who served with him, with a garden given by Japan.
• Fort Martin Scott — 3.7 mi
  An army post of 1848 on Barons Creek beside the German town, where soldiers kept the peace of a Comanche trade and paid the merchants in hard cash.
• Luckenbach — 11 mi
  A store, saloon and dance hall on Grape Creek that a humorist bought in 1971, declared a free state of mind, and turned into a pilgrimage for Texas music.

More markers nearby

• Cross Mountain — 0.4 mi
• Dambach-Besier Home — 1.3 mi
• Gun Cap Factory — 1.3 mi
• Sunday Houses — 1.3 mi