The subject of this biography was born Otfried Hans Freiherr von Meusebach in the town of Dillenburg, Nassau, Germany in 1812 and educated for legal and governmental service. In 1838 he became an assistant judge, with headquarters in Berlin and Potsdam; by 1842 he was Bürgermeister or mayor of Anclam, where he attempted to make fiscal reforms. But the young liberal and intellectual became impatient with the slowness of reform and with entrenched tradition, and decided to emigrate to Texas in hope that the dream of “free citizens of a free state” might be realized.
Meusebach became a shareholder in the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas (the Verein) and was appointed commissioner-general to succeed Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels. Arriving in Texas during the spring of 1845, he adopted a simpler and more democratic form of his name and proceeded to live up to his family motto of Tenox Propositi—“Perservance in Purpose”—as he worked against insuperable obstacles to build the company’s credit (it went bankrupt in 1847), settle the thousands of German immigrants who were pouring into Texas, and combat the schemes of intriguers. He purchased 20,000 acres of headright land on the Pedernales and founded the town of Fredricksburg. One of his last acts as commissioner-general was to negotiate a treaty with the Comanche Indians in the San Saba River territory which permitted the establishment of several small communities along the edge of the previously uninhabited Fisher-Miller grant, in which the Verein had an interest.
Following his resignation in 1847 and his return to Germany for a brief time, Meusebach served a term in the Texas Senate and spent the rest of his life farming or in mercantile pursuits, first at Comanche Springs, then Fredricksburg, and ultimately at Loyal Valley, where he died in 1897.
The biographer (and granddaughter) of this democratic aristocrat relies heavily on the Solms-Braunfels Archives, some seventy volumes of transcriptions in the University of Texas Archives, and the notes and memoranda of her mother and aunt. Apparently there are very few Meusebach letters in existence after 1847. Mrs. King engages in the difficult task of attempting to read Meusebach’s thoughts, but her treatment of his life is sensitive and sympathetic, and she avoids the pitfalls of adulation. Twenty-three illustrations and a map enhanee the book, but unfortunately it is divided into too many fragments—some twenty-five chapters in all—and occasionally (as in Chapter 21) the material is very thin.
