Page:John O. Meusebach - Answer to Interragatories.djvu/26

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

22

cluded) according to the official list. Counted with those who died afterwards at New Braunfels and Fredericksburg, supposed from sickness contracted below, the total did not much overrun 800 or 850. In March I went up from Galveston to Houston, and succeeded in making a contract with Torrey Bros, for a train, or trains, to be started from Indianola to New Braunfels for transporting our emigrants to the latter place. The main point was that it should be paid with drafts on the Company in Europe, because we had no money here at disposal. I drew two drafts, one for $6000 and one for $10,000, in pay for transportation, until the contractors succumbed to the higher offers of the government agents at Lavaca. Whenever new emigrants arrived at New Braunfels they were dispatched, if possible, without delay to the new settlement Fredericksburg, which was then considered the healthiest place. In Houston H. F. Fisher introduced to me, under the name of Dr. Schubert, a man of good appearance, strongly recommending him as a very good doctor and an experienced colonisator. He had just come down with his outfit from Brushy or San Gabriel, where Fisher said that he had started a colony, but had to move on account of Indians. On the strength of the recommendations of Fisher, I engaged him as doctor and director of the new settlement (Fredericksburg), but he turned out afterwards to be a great humbug and adventurer, and I had to dismiss him from office before I resigned myself in 1847. In April, I believe, I went up to Nassau, a plantation in Fayette or Austin county, belonging to the German Emigration Company, hoping to find there time to make full reports to the Company and also to find teams in the well settled neighborhood to be engaged for the transportation of emigrants and provisions. I was followed, as in Galveston, Houston, New Braunfels, and everywhere, by creditors of the Company, principally by