Hoerster House
Built in 1906.
Just as the sandstone structures were indicative of a young frontier community making do (much of the stone was recycled from the abandoned Fort Mason), the board and batten Hoerster House symbolizes the town's shift from country ruggedness to the quaint elegance of the Victorian era. Mason was finally growing up, but the Hoersters knew better than anyone that the journey there had been hard-fought and bloody.
From Germany to German Texas
When Frederick and Johanna Hoerster built their home in 1906, they were only a block away from the center of what was then a thriving downtown Mason. Many houses had been constructed on this stretch of San Antonio Road, by then the busiest thoroughfare in town. No doubt, the Hoersters enjoyed sitting on their front porch and waving at the many friends and relatives who passed by on horseback, buggies, and (before long) automobiles.
But the Hoersters' story begins over half a century earlier, in Piertzenthal, Prussia where Frederick, or Fritz, was born in 1841 to Johann Heinrich (John Henry), a shoemaker, and Maria Christina Hoerster. Through the German Emigration Company, the young Hoerster couple, with sons Fritz (6), Daniel (3), and Anton (1) in tow, sailed on the James Edward from Antwerp to Galveston in 1846, a journey that lasted approximately 45 days. Source.
Though the passenger lists show they were bound for Mason County, it wasn't until after John Meusbach's expedition into Comanche territory in 1847 that Germans could settle (relatively) safely on the acreage they were promised. In the meantime, the Hoersters settled close to Fredericksburg before finally reaching Mason County in 1856. Along with several other German families, they established a small German colony on Upper Willow Creek, seven miles east of present-day Mason. Sadly, Maria would only spend a brief time here. She died in 1859 at the age of 41.
A Boy Becomes a Cattleman
Fritz had been the perfect age to acclimate quickly to his new surroundings. He was old enough, at six, to be romanced by the Texas frontier, vast and dangerous and populated with tough-talking cowboys and masked bandits, but young enough to learn its painful lessons.
From a young age, Fritz joined long trail drives from Texas to points where they could fetch a profit, whether to the gulf where the cattle were shipped by steamer to New Orleans, or north on thousand-mile drives up to Kansas, Missouri, or as far west as California. Texas cattle were known for their toughness and independence, a trait on which Texas drovers depended. There was no time to pamper cattle when attentions were divided among the numerous dangers that waited along the trail.
Abduction on the Frontier
Between the geographic isolation and the constant threat of violence, frontier life was hard enough, and yet, to add to the Hoerster's troubles, it was not uncommon for young children to be the target of capture by Southern Plains tribes on whose territory the Germans had settled. Mason County's historical logs are filled with such accounts of children taken amid of the chaos of a horse or cattle raid. In some cases, the abductees were recovered, months or even years later. For the returned, it was often difficult to settle back into their old lives. Whether through reputations earned or assigned, abductees were forever "different," "wild," or "tough." It's no wonder that some spent the rest of their lives longing to return to tribal life.
Fritz's Younger Brother is Captured, 1859
It was July, only a few months after the family matriarch, Maria, had passed, and the family was still reeling from the untimely loss. Fritz's little brother, nine-year-old William, or Bill, had been instructed to guard the family's horses, keep them fed, watered, and so on. Bill was still a child, and yet, watching the family horses, which were vital to the family's survival, was a task of tremendous importance, especially in that part of the Hill Country where roving bands of Apache or Comanche frequently made off with horses and cattle to trade elsewhere. It's unclear if this was Bill's first encounter with a horse raid, but it was certainly the first time that he was captured along with four family horses by the small band of Kiowas that seized upon the Hoerster farm that day. In the scuffle, Bill sustained a bullet wound in his neck, which would eventually heal.
What the Hoersters learned later of what transpired during the three months Bill went missing was that Bill was traded by the Kiowas to a group of Mexicans for a mule and other property totaling about one hundred dollars.
Bill was taken into New Mexico, where upon entering Mora, a local Indian agent, Christopher (Kit) Carson, inquired about the white boy in their possession. They offered to relinquish the boy to this agent's custody, in exchange for the $100 they had paid for him of course. The agent published a letter in the San Antonio Herald in December 1859 describing the boy, who could remember his parents' and siblings' names, but little else, including where in Texas he was from.
The advertisement worked and Bill was returned to the Hoersters by January 1860 through an exchange facilitated by Texas Governor Sam Houston and the state legislature.
The harrowing experience toughened the young boy, who would earn the nickname "Wild Bill" and "Tough Boy" and enlist in Mason County's Minute Men at the age of 11. Source.
The Mason County Hoo Doo War, 1875-1876
A Feud Between the Law and the Lawless
It's a word that originated in the 19th century and while some will recognize it as a set of folkloric practices cultivated among African Americans in the South, in the context of the land feud that overcame Mason County, hoodoo meant plain ol' bad luck. Cursed to hardship was the Texas frontier, or so many locals probably muttered during the strife of 1875 and 1876, when Mason County was torn asunder, and German settlers and Anglo Texans were pitched on either side.
What Caused The Feud?
Much can be said of the circumstances that led to the outbreak of violence in Mason County in 1875. Some say it began long before the first gunshot, with the arrival of German settlers in the 1840s who, through the land grants promised by the Adelsverein to German newcomers, claimed headrights to the best river-adjacent land in the Texas Hill Country. Others point to the Civil War, during which Germans, who had only just begun to call the United States their home, were predominantly against secession. Most Germans, who maintained small family farms and worked the land themselves, were vocally pro-abolition. Despite this, many German boys were conscripted as Confederate soldiers under the threat of retaliatory violence.
Others more rightly point to a combination of these factors, which added to the increasing resentment between Anglo Texans and German settlers. The situation was a pressure cooker, and eventually, something was bound to set off a proper feud between these two forces. In this case, the last straw was a man's hard-earned cattle, stolen right out from under him.
A Quickie History of the Mason Hoodoo War
A Brother Reflects
Fritz Hoerster watched the town burn around him, with one brother abducted, and the other a casualty of one of Texas' deadliest feuds. How was Fritz spared of this all? Perhaps he wasn't.
No doubt, these painful memories stayed with him even after he settled down with Johanna in their lovely modest home on San Antonio Street. How could they not when Fritz later built on the site of his brother Dan's former store. The building still stands today, two doors down from the Odeon Theater.
No doubt about it, Fritz was a Mason boy till the end. He died in 1931 at the age of 90.