Heinrich Konrad Karl Leverkuhn

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Heinrich Konrad Karl Leverkuhn. Even the name sounds like it was built to last.

Born July 22, 1842, somewhere in Germany, and by 1857 he had already made his way to Texas. Now that alone takes a certain kind of nerve. He was a young man in a new land, and Texas being Texas, the land had opinions about you before you ever had a chance to form one about it.

Then the Civil War came, and Heinrich found himself serving as a foragemaster for the Confederate army. That is not a glamorous title, but don't let it fool you. A foragemaster keeps an army fed and supplied in the field.

Men march on what a foragemaster can find. After the war, he ran a store in Hockley. Practical man.

Then in 1878, he moved out to a place called Foresouth Prairie, which folks today know as Macedonia Community, and he put down roots the kind you don't pull up easy. He became a farmer-rancher. But Heinrich wasn't the type to stop at one thing when five would do.

He built a cotton gin. A syrup mill. A blacksmith shop.

That's not a farm, friend, that's a small civilization with one man's name on it. And he didn't keep it to himself either. He helped found Macedonia Methodist Church, and he helped found McPherson School.

A man building both a house of worship and a schoolhouse in the same community is telling you exactly what he values. He married Selma Kuhn, who passed away in 1876. He later married Martha Rebecca Davis, born in 1855, who passed in 1906.

Between those two marriages, Heinrich Konrad Karl Leverkuhn had fourteen children. Fourteen. He arrived in Texas as one young man from Germany, and he left behind a community, a church, a school, a gin, a mill, a smithy, and fourteen children.

November 11, 1915, was the day the marker closes on. Some men come to Texas and get swallowed up by it. Heinrich brought enough with him that Texas had to make room.

What the marker says

(July 22, 1842 -- November 11, 1915) German-born Heinrich Leverkuhn cane to Texas in 1857 and was a foragemaster for the Confederate army during the Civil War. He ran a store in Hockley after the war. In 1878 he became a farmer-rancher in "Foresouth Prairie", now Macedonia Community. He had a cotton gin, syrup mill, and blacksmith shop. Leverkuhn helped found Macedonia Methodist Church and McPherson School. He married Selma Kuhn (d. 1876) and Martha Rebecca Davis (1855-1906) and had fourteen children. Recorded - 1979