DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to honor every word. Somewhere in Comal County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding a story since before the Civil War, and it starts — as so many good Texas stories do — with people arriving from a long, long way off. Johann Joseph and Anna Gertruda Walzem came to Texas from Prussia, around 1851.
They came, they looked at the land, and they stayed. And they didn't just stay — they settled. They put down roots so deep that by 1859, the State of Texas officially granted them the very land they'd already been living on.
One hundred and sixty acres, including the homesite you'd be standing near right now. Now, Johann was a stonemason. That matters.
That's not a small detail tucked into the corner of this story — that is the engine of it. Because Johann and his sons didn't just build a house. They built the home and the barn from stone right there on the site, pulling the material up out of the same ground the state had granted them.
And if that weren't enough, they also built nearby St. John Chapel. And on top of all that, they dug four cisterns on the property.
Four. The man came from Prussia and he did not slow down. Here's the part that sneaks up on you, though — that stone home they built in stages?
In the 1860s, the local children used it as a school. The barn may have served as a home. One family's hands shaped nearly everything that mattered in that little corner of Comal County.
Then came 1871, and the land began passing to the Walzem children — Johann, Gertrude, Andreas, Heinrich, and Peter. Five names carrying forward what two people carried over from Prussia. That's the thing about a stonemason's legacy.
It doesn't drift away in the wind. It stands.
What the marker says
Homesite of Johann and Gertruda Walzem Johann Joseph and Anna Gertruda Walzem came to Texas from Prussia c. 1851. In 1859, the State of Texas officially granted them the land they had settled (160 acres), including this homesite. Johann was a stonemason. He and his sons built the home and barn, as well as nearby St. John Chapel. They also dug four cisterns on the property. Starting in 1871, the land passed to the Walzem's children: Johann, Gertrude, Andreas, Heinrich and Peter. The home, built in stages of stone from the site, served as a school for the local children in the 1860s. The barn also may have been used as a home. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2002