Leyendecker Family

The Leyendecker Family Papers record in detail the business and personal affairs of one of Texas's earliest German families. Margaretha and Friedrich Zimmerscheidt came from the Rhine Valley to New York in 1828 and moved on to Texas in 1834 where they took up residence on Cummins Creek in Austin's Colony. In 1843 they were joined by their daughter Josephine, who had stayed behind with cousins, her husband Johann Leyendecker, and their four children. These were literate, enterprising people who had been fairly successful at home. Johann Leyendecker had been mayor of the town of Neuhäusel and had operated a tavern there. The lure of free land and unlimited opportunity enticed them and a few friends and relatives to form a small pocket of immigrants in what was by that time Colorado County in the Republic of Texas. The collection reflects their isolated struggle to achieve their goals and creates a much different picture from that of the later, large communities of exclusively German immigrants.

Johann Leyendecker raised cotton and ran a gin, and he had a large herd of cattle and other livestock. His oldest son Johann Friedrich, with whose family most of the material is concerned, after serving in the Civil War, became intimately involved in Colorado County politics, held at one time or another most of the local political positions, and engaged in various types of legal and financial business, as well as investing extensively in land. He was elected to the Texas legislature in 1872. He established the Pearfield Nursery in 1876 and became well known for his horticultural activities. When he died in 1908, his daughters Katherine (Carrie) and Laura and the latter's husband Emil Brune remained in the family home and ran the nursery.

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