The August Hennersdorf House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. August and Johanne Hennersdorf made a long journey, coming all the way from Prussia to Fredericksburg in 1855. They put down roots in the Texas Hill Country, and those roots ran deep.

So deep, in fact, that the Hennersdorf family would hold onto this property for ninety years. Now, the house they built, a frame and limestone residence, went up sometime in the early nineteen hundreds. Frame and limestone, that's a combination you see out here in Gillespie County, practical and solid.

But here's the part that'll make you lean in a little closer. Underneath the frame portion of that house, in the floor joists, evidence suggests something remarkable may be hiding. Those joists may be the octagonal wooden columns from Fredericksburg's original Vereins Kirche.

The very same columns. That church had been dismantled in 1896, and those columns had to go somewhere. Well, it appears they may have gone right under the Hennersdorf family's feet, holding up their home, quiet and unassuming.

No fanfare, just timber doing what timber does. The Hennersdorf family kept that property for ninety years, standing on history they may not have fully known was right beneath them. Some things hold a town up in ways you'd never expect.

What the marker says

August and Johanne Hennersdorf migrated to Fredericksburg from Prussia in 1855. In the early 1900s they constructed this frame and limestone residence for their family. Evidence indicates the floor joists under the frame portion of the home may be the octagonal wooden columns from Fredericksburg's original vereins Kirche, which had been dismantled in 1896. Members of the Hennersdorf family owned the property for ninety years. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982