DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Friedrich Ernst — and friend, this one reaches all the way back to the old country. Now, the man was born Christian Friedrich Ernst Dirks, in Germany, in 1796. He picked up a musket for the German army in 1814 and served five years.
Then he came home, married Louise Gesine Auguste Weber in 1819, and the two of them got busy building a family — Caroline, John Friedrich, Ludwig, Wilhelmine, and Hermann. Five children. That is a full house by any reckoning.
In 1829 the whole Ernst operation — all seven of them — sailed for the United States and landed in New York. But New York, apparently, was not the destination. It was just the door.
Because in 1831, Friedrich Ernst pointed himself at Texas, bringing the family into Stephen F. Austin's second colony. And here's where the story starts to ripple outward across time: they are thought to be the first German family in Texas.
The first. Out of all the tens of thousands who would eventually come. He received a land grant — four thousand, four hundred and twenty-eight acres on Mill Creek, in what is present-day Industry.
On that land he grew produce and tobacco. He also became the first recorded European to manufacture cigars in Texas. I'll just let that sit there a moment.
The man was farming, raising five kids, and running what was essentially the first cigar operation in the state. Not a bad start. But Ernst wasn't content to just work his own acres.
He got into civic life — served as a Justice of the Peace, sat on the commissioners court. He supported the establishment of Hermann's University and served on its very first board of trustees. The man was planting institutions the same way he planted tobacco.
And then he did something that changed the shape of Texas itself. Friedrich Ernst wrote a series of letters — letters to German officials, encouraging their citizens to pack up and move to America. Those letters traveled across the Atlantic and pulled people toward Texas by the thousands.
That is why he was called the Father of German Immigration to Texas. Not a title anyone handed out lightly. Friedrich Ernst died in 1848.
And the marker that remembers him stands in a park located on land he once owned — and there's a scholarship carrying his name forward too. One man, one land grant, one set of letters written to folks an ocean away. Sometimes that's all it takes to move the world.
What the marker says
Christian Friedrich Ernst (Dirks) was born in Germany in 1796. Friedrich Ernst was inducted into the German army in 1814 and served for five years. He married Louise Gesine Auguste Weber in 1819. They became the parents of Caroline, John Friedrich, Ludwig, Wilhelmine, and Hermann Ernst. In 1829 the family sailed to the United States and settled in New York. In 1831 they came to Texas as part of Stephen F. Austin's second colony and are thought to be the first German family in Texas. Ernst received a land grant of 4,428 acres of land on Mill Creek in present day Industry where he grew produce and tobacco and was the first recorded European to manufacture cigars in Texas. Ernst became active in civic affairs in the area, serving as a Justice of the Peace and as a member of the commissioners court. He supported the establishment of Hermann's University and served on its first board of trustees. Ernst, who wrote a series of letters to German officials to encourage their citizens to move to America, was called the Father of German Immigration to Texas. Ernst died in 1848 and is remembered through this park located on land he once owned and a scholarship in his name. (1996)