German-Texan Heritage Society, The Journal, Volume 22, Number 3, Fall 2000 Page: 55
100 p. : ill.View a full description of this periodical.
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55
unknown hand has taken care of. Little do the visitors know about the adventurous fates of the one buried there. He
was a German and a Texan at the same time."
"He partook in and took advantage of one of America's wildest times, as a brawling bully, city founder, friend of
Indians, and associate of the pioneers. It all began for him in a ballroom (in Germany) with an irrepressible
remark; and it chased him over half the earth's globe, and never allowed him a moment's peace, this
writer-adventurer, Armand." (1. MS IL 6-B)
"MY HONOR IS VIOLATED...WE MUST DUEL!"
Schubert came to Texas from the East Coast via the river system to Louisville, Kentucky, and then cross
country through Arkansas and into East Texas. Meusebach and most other Germans and central Europeans came
from the Gulf Coast of New Orleans to Galveston on Texas' Easternmost Gulf Coast and finally to the port of
Indianola (near present-day Port Lavaca) halfway between Galveston and Corpus Christi. At Indianola they began
their trek up into the rugged Central Texas Hill Country.
Schubert was born Friedrich August Strubberg in Kassel, Hessen, Germany on May 18, 1806. His father was an
affluent and highly influential tobacco manufacturer. His mother also came from well placed French stock. Her
name was Frederike Elise Prevot de Marville.
"Schubert" had no love except hunting and shooting. His skill with the pistol made him so cocksure that his
chemistry obliged his ego, and as the historian Armin O. Huber put it so aptly, the urge to duel could not be
repressed. He had more privileges, and far earlier in life, than most others of his age. And, at the age of only
sixteen he went to work in Bremen for his father. In defense of the "love of his life", he shot a rival for the hand of
Bremen's Antoinette Henriette Sattler. To escape the wrath of the victim's family and friends, Schubert then "ran",
without Antoinette, onto a clipper ship and landed for the first time in America in 1825.
In 1829 he returned to Kassel where he took over his father's tobacco factory. Sooner than later, the business
declined and Schubert left again for America to direct imports and exports in New York prior to the death of his
father in 1843.
Then, in what seemed to be a pre-programmed inevitable fact of his life, Schubert again killed. He claimed his
honor had been violated, this time by the nephew of the governor of Maryland. Schubert's own writings detail the
minutiae of the duel. (1. MS IL 6-C) Of course, it was not Armand who was killed. God seems to give miscreants
a very long rope. Again he fled...eventually to the Republic of Texas. It would be in Texas that he would find out
that a number of others had come there for the same reasons, running from their deeds, perhaps even from
themselves. In store for him would be the eating of some humble pie.
Schubert claimed he had entered a school of medicine for a time. There is another story that he was hurt in a
barge or ship wreck at Louisville. He "learned" medicine while watching his doctor treat him and others in a
Louisville hospital. Although there does not seem to be any record of his completing a medical school or passing
any medical examination, he left Louisville using the name Dr. F. Schubbert. The title "Dr." was his own gift to
himself.
He made his way through the Ozarks and stayed for awhile in Camden, Arkansas. In the winter of 1844 he
crossed the Red River into the Republic of Texas. He eventually made his way into the Comanche and Huaco held
San Gabriel River Valley, only a series of hills and vales away from the main Comanche Indian stronghold and
hunting paradise in the San Saba Country of mid-Texas. He may have met his match in land swindling, for in less
than a year he gave up his San Gabriel land he planned on selling and went to Houston (Harrisburg).Coming into the Central Texas Hill Country from the opposite direction, the Southeast, was Baron Otfried Hans
von Meusebach, after receiving the blessing in Berlin by no other than His Royal Highness, the Prussian Prince
Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig von Hohenzollern. The first Commissioner General of the Texas Verein, Prince Karl zu
Solms-Braunfels had resigned. Now Baron von Meusebach was to continue the German immigration project to
Texas by the Adelsverein while the doors to Texas were still wide open.
MEUSEBACH MEETS AND HIRES SCHUBERT
It is then when Schubert probably figured that the title "Dr." could do him no harm. So he sent a message of his
availability to the Baron von Meusebach, the new commissioner general of the Adelsverein in Texas, also called
the Texas Verein. In the meantime, Meusebach had breathed in, through and through, the fresh and invigoratingopyrignt ( 2000 German- I exan heritage Society
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German-Texan Heritage Society. German-Texan Heritage Society, The Journal, Volume 22, Number 3, Fall 2000, periodical, Autumn 2000; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1507441/m1/61/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting German-Texan Heritage Society.