The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 40, July 1936 - April, 1937 Page: 21

Prince Solms's Trip to Texas, 1844-1845

Society as a matter wholly unworthy of the Society and a real
stigma upon human society.36
On January 1, 1845, Prince Solms extended the appropriate
greetings to the directorate from Port Lavaca, moved his head-
quarters to Chocolate Creek on the third, and completed his re-
port there on the fifth. He expected the last of the immigrants
under the leadership of Jean J. von Coll, bookkeeper for the col-
ony, to reach the camp on Chocolate Creek that day. The first
session of the colonial council was called for the next day. As
soon as he had made all arrangements for the protection of the
settlers there he planned to go to Washington to ask the Texan
Congress for the passage of an act to incorporate the Society.37
On January 19, after having organized the one hundred and
eight men at Chocolate Creek into two military units, a reserve
company for assisting the regular company and for service out-
side the settlement and a second reserve company (Landwehr),
Prince Solms started on his trip to Washington with a retinue
of four men. One of these, Friedrich von Wrede, Jr., who had
arrived in Texas in August, 1844, with a special communication
from the Society, was the prince's traveling companion from that
time on. Prince Solms rarely ever mentioned any of his experi-
ences on his overland trips, but young von Wrede gave an inter-
esting account of the trip from Chocolate Creek to Washington
on the Brazos and Galveston. Among other things he wrote:
We made thirty miles the first day and arrived in the evening
at Victoria where we put up at the City Hotel. The place was
being renovated, and the only available, reasonably air-tight room
was the dining room, which served also as a parlor [lobby],
where a number of tobacco-chewing Americans sat around the
stove. His Highness preferred to sit in the kitchen by the open
fireplace and made an arrangement with the landlady to put up
beds in the dining room as soon as the Americans should leave.
After a long wait these gentlemen had the courtesy to leave, and
we retired. Day was hardly breaking next morning when a fel-
low slipped cat-like through the back door of our room and un-
bolted the street door, whereupon the room filled up with Ameri-
cans who had been waiting outside. The stove was the magnet
which attracted them. Fortunately the people have little money
here, else these gentlemen would surely have gotten drunk before
8S-B A., L, 31-32; Kalender filr 1916, pp. 47-48.
'"S-B A., XL, 73-75; Kalender filr 1916, pp. 48-49.