BROWNSBORO CEMETERY |
 Day of Dedication |
BIOGRAPHIES OF BROWNSBORO
Charles Bierschwale (1855–1889). His tombstone proclaims “Kendall County Alliance No. 3289.” This man joined the Farmers’ Alliance, which was an agrarian economic movement among U.S. farmers that flourished in the 1880s. The Alliance promoted higher commodity prices through collective action by groups of individual farmers. In the 1880 census, he lived with his 20-year old wife Mattie and 10-month old daughter Viola. He died in 1889 because of a kick received from a horse. Charles Bierschwale and Henry Bierschwale were probably brothers. Conrad Bierschwale (1820–1865) and wife Elizabeth Fust (1822–1903) came to Texas in 1852 from Hanover, settling at Fredericksburg. There were thirteen children, including Henry born in Germany and Charles born in Texas.
Henry Bierschwale (1845–1877). Private, Company C, 33rd Texas Cavalry (Duff’s Regiment). An early 1855 resident of Kendall County, he enlisted at Austin on September 15, 1862, in Duff’s Regiment [filed as Henry Burchwell]. The Regimental Return for May 1864 notes “Deserted while on march to Bonham.” Widow Betsy Bierschwale (1850–1934) received a pension in 1913 on the basis of her husband’s three-year service, as affirmed by two witnesses: A. S. Moore who enlisted with Bierschwale in 1862, and J. A. Nichols who knew Bierschwale before and after the war. Betsy married Bierschwale in 1869 and they lived on Block Creek. Bierschwale’s death in 1877 was accidental: “While crossing Houston Street bridge, his oxen took fright, and swerved, thereby endangering a buggy, in which were Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. Wheeler. Mr. Bierschwale tried to turn the oxen and stop the buggy team, but he was knocked down and the hind wheels of his wagon passed over his body, inflicting fatal injuries. . . . The weight of the wagon and cotton was 3,000 pounds.” Heinrich (Henry) Bierschwale was born in Hanover, Germany, one of four children of Conrad and Elizabeth Bierschwale born in Germany; they came to Kendall County in 1855 (?1852). Henry married Elizabeth Jane Wilson in 1869, and they settled in 1875 near the Sabinas Creek. Henry and Elizabeth had four children: George, Ellen, Robert, and James. Another child, an infant son born on the day of his father’s death, survived only nine days, and is buried in the children’s section at Brownsboro Cemetery.
Josefa Basques (1893–1912). A visitor to Comfort, although knowing of no direct connection, recognized a surname similarity while visiting the cemetery in 2008. She sprinkled holy water from the Catholic Church on the grave.
John C. Brown (1838–1919). Private, Company A, McCord’s Frontier Regiment Texas Cavalry. He and new wife Martha appear in 1860 Kerr County census; he was a waggoner. They lived in the Brownsboro area and later in the Joshua Creek neighborhood. He enlisted in 1862 at Camp Davis, a ranger station in Gillespie County for the Frontier Regiment. The Kendall County 1863 Needy Families list includes the wife and first-born son. In the 1910 census he claimed Confederate Army service.
William E. Giles (1819–1885). Born in Virginia in 1820, he was one of the original settlers at Comfort. He and wife Sarah, at the time of the 1860 census, had eight children at home. They also appear in the 1870 and 1880 Kendall County censuses. Alfred Giles, the architect and owner of Hillingdon Ranch, was born in England in 1853, and came to Texas in 1873. No relationship is evident.
Diana Brown Harwood (1873–1932) is mentioned as a surviving daughter in John Caleb Brown’s 1919 obituary, designated Mrs. William W. Harwood. Her obituary gives her birth in 1873 in the Joshua Creek neighborhood. She married Harwood in 1908 and lived in Arkansas for twelve years, then in Houston for one year, and then in Galveston where she died. She had no children.
L.T. Hatcher (1845–1891). No information. Cpl. Maurice E. Hatcher (b. about 1922) was killed in action in Germany on February 28, 1945 (The Comfort News Mar. 15, 1945), He was reburied at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery April 23, 1949. His mother, Mrs. R.L. Hatcher died in Beeville on July 25, 1960. A sister, Melva Pauline Hatcher Winston, born in Comfort, lives in Waco.
Christian Haufler (1843–1901). Private, Company K, 3rd Texas Infantry. When 18 years of age, at New Braunfels on April 1, 1862, he enlisted in Captain Julius Bose’s Company, and was mustered-in at Camp Terry. He was present for duty on company muster rolls through February 1864, after which his records are not available. His commander, Captain Bose, wrote letters to the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung chronicling the unit’s moves to San Antonio, Ringgold Barracks, Fort Brown, Columbus, Sabine Pass, Houston, and finally to Arkansas to participate in the Battle of Jenkins Ferry in April 1864. His brother John served on the Union side. At the end of the war, when paroled, Haufler gave his residence as Comal County. He is on the post-war Comal County Amnesty Oath register, and in 1867 he was one of fourteen men who became citizens of the United States, a requirement before being certified on the 1867 Voters Registration list. By 1870, he lived at Sisterdale, working as a teamster. In the 1900 census, he was still in Kendall County, in the Brownsboro community, where he was buried in 1901. The West Texas Independent Courier, a predecessor of The Comfort News, reported his suicide.
Richard Haufler (1888–1910). According to an article in The Comfort News of September 16, 1910 he died on September 11, 1910 while riding to a shooting match with his brothers, Fritz and Oscar, and several other companions. At a culvert on the road between Waring and Welfare his horse became frightened and uncontrollable. It dashed Richard head first against a tree near the road, leaving him unconscious. Efforts by his friends and Dr. Jones to revive him were unsuccessful. It was thought that he had died almost instantly when he fell. He was survived by his mother Rosa, four brothers, Otto, Fritz, Louis and Oscar, and two sisters, Mrs. Hoffmann and Miss Gretchen Haufler. Rosa Haufler (1848–1925). According to her death certificate, she was born in Germany and her father’s name was Ertel. She was a widow when she died January 15, 1925, of peritonitis, according to Dr. Jones. Undertaker Lindemann buried her at Big Bend Cemetery. Her funeral is the only one known to have been attended by an interviewed neighbor. Otto Haufler, when eight years old, attended her inclement-weather January burial. It was a cold day, requiring canvas shields around the gravesite to stop the wind. There was no casket, just burial of the body in the ground. Karl Herbst, representing the Sons of Hermann, gave a funeral oration.
Candelaria Hernandez (d. 1923). The Comfort News reported another individual befitting burial at Brownsboro (although no memorial is identifiable). “Woman Killed in Waring” was the front-page headline in the October 18, 1923, issue. The gunshot murder of Candelaria Hernandez (Mrs. Ascension Hernandez) occurred in the kitchen of her home in the presence of her nine-year old daughter. The suspected assailant fled on horseback.
Levi W. “L. W.” Howell (1826–1897). Private, Homeguard Company for Charco in Goliad County, 29th Brigade, Texas State Troops. Born in Wales, he came to Goliad County about 1848 and engaged in stock-raising. He joined Capt. Greenwood’s Company of militia in August 1861 according to a company roll in October 1861. Further service details are unknown. By 1867 he was living on the Guadalupe River, probably in the Brownsboro community. In the 1870 census, there were two children: John (15) and Mathias (10). Schoolteacher Hamilton Smith lived with them also.
Julian Jimenez (1860 – 1944). Born at Piedras Negras in Mexico, the son of Juan Antonio Jimenez and Filomena Jurado, he obtained work in Eagle Pass with Bill Nagle. His employer suggested opportunity in the Comfort area, so he came to Waring about 1900. He worked as a caretaker of the animals at a resort ranch near Waring for many years. He married Ramona Floria (1884–1960) and had three daughters: Paula (b. 1903), Adeline, and Maria, and one son Matilde.
B. F. Johnson. No information.
Thomas N. Manning (1826–1898). Private, Company D, 1st State Troops Texas Infantry. He enrolled in Capt. J. W. Lawrence’s Company on September 25, 1863, for six months. On the 1867 Voters Registration, he lived in Kendall County on the Guadalupe River, claiming 10 years in Texas and 3 years in the county; the tabulator remarked, “Volunteered in Rebel Army. Rebel propensities.” The Kendall County Tax List of 1867 shows him with 350 acres. The 1870 census shows him [indexed as Thomas Hanning] as a 44-year-old farmer from Alabama, living with his wife “Sarry” and no children. He donated an acre of his land for a church and graveyard in 1870 at Brownsboro. He is present in the 1880 census, living in the Brownsboro community along the Guadalupe River; no children at that time. When the Waring School started in 1889, Thomas Manning and R. P. M. Waring and Adolph Zoeller were the first trustees. About 1895, when Brownsboro was under the direction of the Center Point Church, Thomas Manning was a trustee of the Center Point Church. At the time of his death, the Brownsboro church was still present: In the little church in the Bend, which many years ago the deceased was one of the chief ones to establish, and ever since to attend and support, was the last roof to shelter him on earth. Borne there by gentle hands, surrounded by mourning relatives and sympathetic friends with appropriate burial service and last goodbyes, there in the adjoining cemetery in the declining rays of a western sun, by the side of the body of his little grandson, Rex, whom he so devotedly had loved, the worn body of Squire Manning was laid to rest—gone from labor to eternal refreshment. (Unidentified newspaper, April 25, 1898)
William Lee (1865–1903). Mr. And Mrs. Lee were the teachers at the Waring school in 1903. It had begun in 1891 as a one-room schoolhouse for grades 1–8; local citizens added a second room in 1903. One son, Aubrey Lee, recalled that he was 4-years old when his father died. He didn’t know where his father’s burial place was. When Guido Ransleben published his gravestone survey about 1965, Maurice Haufler who worked at the entomology station in Kerrville, showed the information about William Lee to Dr. Radeleff at the entomology station. The two of them visited the cemetery to confirm the information, and then sent it to Radeleff’s friend, Aubrey Lee, in Maryland. Lee replied that he would come to visit.
George W. Nichols (1821–1911) and Lucy Jane Nichols (1823–1890) were from Tennessee. The 1880 census had two children at home: Jefferson Davis Nichols (17) and Mary Dallas Nichols (15). Mary Dallas married James Brenchnode and her father lived with them in 1900. Tennessee marriage records have George Nichols with Lucy Jane Young in 1838. Five men named George W. Nichols served Tennessee in the Civil War, but a direct connection to the Brownsboro man is not apparent.
James B. Nowlin (1846–1925). Private, Company B, McCord’s Frontier Regiment Texas Cavalry. He joined at Camp Verde when 17-years-old, and served until the end of the war. When paroled in 1865, he gave his residence as Kendall County. On the 1867 Voter Registration, he lived at Curry’s Creek, and the tabulator remarked, “Joined Rebel Army to avoid conscription.” The 1870 census has James Nowlin, a farmer, from Mississippi, with wife Mary T. Manning Nowlin (1848–1901) and one-year-old son Ruben. Next-door are Thomas and Sarah Manning with no children. The Nowlins are not recorded in the 1880 census. The 1900 census, however, has seven children in the household: Alice (31), Frank (26), Fannie (24), Tom (21), Edgar (17), Charles (13), and Ross (9), as well as two boarders; all the children were single. Sister Alice Nowlin (1869–1917) and brother Thomas Nowlin (1879–1933) are buried in Brownsboro Cemetery.
Rex Nowlin (1888–1896), referred to as a “grandson” of Thomas Manning, was a younger brother of Alice and Thomas Nowlin, one of eleven children; Rex was born nineteen years after his sister Alice.
August[e]a Offer (1861–1893). She married August Julius Offer (1859–1932) in Waring on December 17, 1882; he is buried in San Antonio. She was the daughter of Johann Adam Reinhard and Katherine Hartung., born August 31, 1861, in Bergland [Bergheim?], Texas. She died October 15, 1893, in Kendall County. Her six children included Anna, born in Sisterdale in 1887, who died in 1898 at Waring and is buried in Brownsboro Cemetery.
Rebeca (sic) Rose (1847–1897). The daughter of George and Lucy Nichols, she married James H. Rose. He and his three brothers and father had served in the Confederate Army. In 1886 the Bluford Rose family moved to Kendall County, four miles east of Comfort. Rebeca and James had five children: Andrew Jackson, Edward Oliver, Cala J., Benjamin Franklin, and Felix E. Modern descendant Beca Short also spells Rebeca with one “c.”
Pedro Sarabia 1855–1930). The 1920 census has 65-year-old Pedro Sarabia Sr. [indexed as Sctabia] and 60-year-old wife Maria A. Sarabia, along with grandson Alvino Sarabia. Pedro Jr. is nearby and was born in Texas in 1880, suggesting the date of immigration of Pedro Sr. Other censuses (1900, 1910, 1930) do not show them.
Ruby Seckinger. No information
Richard Stribling (1815–1896) and Eliza Stribling (1824–1924). They arrived between 1870 and 1880, at which time the census showed sons Edgar (27), John (25), Frank (21), Walter (18), and William (13) in the household, along with one daughter Lizzie (23). The children were born in various states—Iowa, California, and Illinois. Edgar Stribling (1851–1924) was a well-known farmer in the Waring community. He reported the discovery of a large Plymouth Rock rooster that had inadvertently been trapped under a barrel in the barn for forty days, weak and reduced in weight, but still alive. The chicken recovered completely. (The Comfort News March 8, 1919). Edgar died April 11, 1924, and was buried in the Brownsboro Cemetery (The Comfort News, April 17, 1924). His wife, Frances Kurz Stribling (1859–1943), died January 15, 1943, and was buried in the Comfort cemetery.
Frank Stribling (1858–1917) married Elizabeth Meyer in Kendall County on August 26, 1883.The July 1900 Guadalupe River 65' flood was catastrophic, destroying the San Antonio and Aransas Pass railway bridge and inundating vacationers’ camps along the river. One group—Mrs. Walter Napier, Mrs. W. G. Collins, Mrs. M. Dukes, five children, and a camp attendant, vacationing four miles from Waring, lost everything, but reached safety at the Stribling Ranch.
Mrs. Pedro Trevino (1886–1912). According to her death certificate, she was born in Texas and her father was Pedro Vasques. She was “about 26 years old” according to the informant, Santos Bitella. Undertaker Lindemann handled the burial on January 20, 1912.Samual Wallace (1856–1882). A descendant in Kerrville, Milton Bernhard, reports he is the youngest grandson. To supplement the original deteriorated tombstone, the Bernhard family on May 4, 2008, emplaced a new flat granite stone in front of the original, using the name “Thomas Samuel Wallace” and inscribing the dates “June 4 1856” and “Oct 12 1888.” Bernhard reported that Wallace married Ida Marquardt on June 18, 1876, and they had three children; further that Wallace died October 12, 1888, in an accident involving a horse. Bernhard reported that six years after Wallace’s death, his widow remarried John Coffey Wilson and moved to Kerrville and had seven more children. The family has a unique bill of sale, dated July 20, 1882, by which T. S. Wallace conveyed three cow-calf units to August Faltin for $60; the document includes sketches of the cow brands and ear clips. Thomas Samuel Wallace died October 12, 1882, according to Muller-Marquardt-Perner-Weber History by Delray E. Fischer and Betty Schmidt Johnson (1999, rev. 2005, p. 98), This book further states that Ida Marquardt married John Coffey Wilson June 1, 1884, in Kendall County (p. 98). They moved to Kerrville in 1900 to operate the Central Hotel. She had seven children in her second marriage, including Lillian Wilson on November 26, 1885, Doratha Pairlea on November 17, 1888, and five others (p. 99). The third child, Philip Wilson, was born August 31, 1891; he died January 17, 1893; he is buried in Brownsboro Cemetery (p. 99). Author: Frank W. Kiel © November 28, 2008