DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to give it the voice it deserves. Now, some men arrive in Texas and make a small splash. And then there are men like the Reverend Jacob Scherer, who arrived and just quietly remade the landscape — in ways both spiritual and, as it turns out, literal.
Scherer was born on February 7, 1785, in North Carolina. He'd lived a full life before Texas ever entered the picture. But in 1851, he made the move, and Colorado County got itself a pastor.
As pastor here, he is said to have founded the first English-speaking Lutheran Church in Texas. Let that settle for a moment. The first.
English-speaking. Lutheran Church. In the whole state of Texas.
But the Reverend wasn't a man who stopped at one thing. In 1857, he became a founder of Colorado College — the first public school in Columbus, and one of the first public schools in the entire state of Texas. Now, here's where the story gets a particular kind of wonderful.
When it came time to actually build that college, the Reverend and his three sons didn't wait on anyone else. They made the brick themselves. Fired it, shaped it, hauled it.
And then they built the building with their own hands. Jacob Scherer died on March 2, 1860. But the walls of that school — brick by brick, laid by a preacher and his boys — those stood as his answer to the question of what a man can leave behind.
What the marker says
(February 7, 1785 - March 2, 1860) Born in North Carolina. Moved to Texas in 1851. As pastor here, is said to have founded the first English-speaking Lutheran Church in Texas; a founder (1857) of Colorado College, first public school in Columbus and one of first in Texas; he and 3 sons made brick and built the college. (1973)