The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, July 1946 - April, 1947 Page: 84
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
uary 5, 1845, Ervendberg conducted services in camp at the
Agua Dulce (Chocolate Creek)." At the second meeting of the
Adelsverein's colonial council in camp at the Agua Dulce on
January 8, 1845, it was decided to pay Ervendberg twenty
pounds sterling ($100) and to give him provisions (rations)
for himself and his family until the congregation would have
to provide for his support."8
Services were conducted regularly on the way from the coast
to New Braunfels and were continued upon arrival there. Er-
vendberg selected a clump of elm trees at the foot of the Vereins-
berg under which to conduct services when the weather per-
mitted, and this remained the meeting place until the first
church building, a modest frame structure of medium size, was
completed at the corner of Seguin and Church Streets on March
22, 1846, the day on which Ervendberg dedicated it. The best
description of this open-air sanctuary is contained in the fol-
lowing passage:
A few golden rays of bright sunlight, which lay resplendent upon the
tree tops, crowded through the lighter parts of the leafy canopy and sent
quivering beams down upon the simple altar which had been erected at
the west end of the clump of trees before two slender elms which stood
a little higher on the hillside. Between them rose a plain cross made of
two tree trunks, the victorious sign of God's love over death. This pleasant
and beautiful site was a temple built by the Creator himself. The trees
were the columns of the temple and the firmament was its roof. This site
was the consecrated place where on Sunday towards eventide the Christian
immigrants gathered for services to hear the glad tidings of the grace of
a kind and loving Father, to thank him for his protection, and to ask for
his further help and blessing for the great, laborious, self-denying, and
dangerous task of their lives: the founding of a new home for themselves
and their children on this wild frontier.3s
Although the Adelsverein paid for Ervendberg's services as
pastor and religious teacher, helped to build the first church
just referred to, and owned the lots on which the church and
the pastor's house stood, the congregation, which called itself
the Protestantische Gemeinde in Neu Braunfels,40 seems not
37"Berichte" in Kalender, 45, 49.
3BSolms-Braunfels Archiv, LIX, 81. In ibid., XLIII, 24, Ervendberg is
shown as receiving one hundred dollars annual salary and two and one-
half rations per day at nineteen cents per ration, equivalent to $173.37%
per year.
s3Seele, Die Cypresse, 54-55.
40The title page of this congregation's records shows the name Protes-
tantische Gemeinde in Neu Braunfels. The first two volumes of these
records were loaned to the library of The University of Texas in 1938-1939,
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 50, July 1946 - April, 1947, periodical, 1947; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101117/m1/100/?rotate=90: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.