The Texas Historian, Volume 32, Number 1, September 1971 Page: 28
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Texas Historian and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Texas State Historical Association.
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A SUCCESSFUL TRANSPLANT
by WILLIAM HANNUM
Fredericksburg High SchoolACCORDING TO AN OLD SAYING, "It's an ill
wind that blows somebody good." This old
saying held true for my great-great-grand-
father, Wilhelm Kothe. Kothe was born the
second son to parents in Brunswick, Ger-
many, who practiced the law of primogeni-
ture. That was the ill wind for Kothe; for
Ferdinand, Kothe's older brother, was sole
heir to the family estate. How Kothe bent
to this ill wind, the following story will re-
veal.
In 1842 the Verein zum Schutze deutscher
Einwanderer in Texas was formed in Ger-
many. This Society for the Protection of Ger-
man Emigrants in Texas was better known
by its shorter name Verein. The emigrants
were promised inexpensive transportation on
ships to Texas, and wagons from the Texas
coast to the land to be colonized. Once the
emigrants arrived at the land grant, they
would also receive a tract of land from the
Verein.The Verein obtained the Fisher-Miller
Grant for the German emigrants. This was a
land grant consisting of over 3,000,000 acres
of land located between the Colorado and
Llano Rivers. However, this land had not
been surveyed at the time that many of the
immigrant ships arrived at the Texas ports of
Galveston and Indianola in 1844 and 1845.
Often the immigrants had no wagons as prom-
ised; they walked up the immigration route to
the Verein settlement of New Braunfels. This
was a weary trip for all, and a sad one for
many. The graves along the route were re-
minders of the hardships to all who passed.
Among these German immigrants arriv-
ing at Indianola in the autumn of 1846 was
Wilhelm Kothe of Brunswick, age twenty-
nine. The ship Elisa and Charlotte brought
him. He had heard of the new lands in Texas
that were open for settlement and made up
his mind to go there to seek his fortune. He
decided to make the long voyage alone, and28
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Texas State Historical Association. The Texas Historian, Volume 32, Number 1, September 1971, periodical, September 1971; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth391508/m1/30/?q=%22wilhelm+kothe%22: accessed February 8, 2025), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.