DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and friend, this one's worth every mile to hear. Way out here in Mason County, about four miles to the west, a creek called Squaw Creek winds through the land where a German immigrant family named Lehmann put down roots back in the 1850s. Moritz and Auguste Lehmann had crossed an ocean and built a life on that ground.
Then Moritz passed, and Auguste married a man named Philip Buchmeier. Life on the Texas frontier kept moving, the way it always did — until the day it stopped. May 16, 1870.
Two of the Lehmann children were outside when Apache Indians came. Herman, ten years old. Willie, just eight.
Both of them taken. Now here's where the story splits like a fork in the trail. Willie was released after five days and made it back home.
Five days. You can only imagine what that reunion looked like. But Herman — Herman didn't come home.
Not then. He stayed with the Apache, and then with the Comanche Indians, for eight years. Eight years out on that frontier, living a life his family back on Squaw Creek could scarcely picture.
It wasn't until 1878 that U.S. soldiers returned him to his family. Returned — that's the word on the marker, and it carries some weight. Because here's the thing that the marker wants you to sit with: Herman came back, but he never fully left.
For the remainder of his life, he maintained his ties to the Comanche family into which he had been adopted — Quanah Parker's family. Two boys. One creek.
One May morning in 1870. And a man who spent the rest of his days belonging, in his own way, to two worlds at once.
What the marker says
German immigrants Moritz and Auguste Lehmann settled along Squaw Creek (4 mi. W) in the 1850s. After Moritz's death, Auguste married Philip Buchmeier. On May 16, 1870, two of the Lehmann children, Herman (age 10) and Willie (age 8) were captured by Apache Indians. Willie was released after five days and returned home, but Herman remained with the Apache and Comanche Indians for eight years. He was returned to his family by U. S. soldiers in 1878 but maintained his ties to Quanah Parker's Comanche family, into which he had been adopted, for the remainder of his life. (1991)