DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. William DeRyee — the name you see on that marker in Nueces County — wasn't always his name, and Texas wasn't always his home. The man was born Wilhelm Döry in Würzburg, Bavaria.
He was educated at the Gymnasium and Lateinschule right there in Würzburg, and then went on to study at the University of Munich. Smart fella. The kind of mind that doesn't sit still for long.
And sure enough, it didn't. In 1848, he participated in an uprising against King Ludwig I. When that uprising was suppressed, he left — along with other dissidents — and settled in Tennessee.
New country, new start. He married a woman named Dorothea Mylius, who had come from Saxony, in 1849. They had five children together.
And somewhere along the way, Wilhelm Döry became William DeRyee. The marker doesn't explain the change, just notes it happened — and that's a story that belongs to the man alone. Now, DeRyee wasn't the kind of person who landed somewhere and stayed put.
He established highly effective cottonseed mills, and that work gathered the attention of copper mine operators, who hired him to investigate their mines. That reputation followed him when he and his family relocated to New Braunfels, where he developed and demonstrated new photography techniques alongside other German immigrants. So here you've got a chemist, geologist, and photographer — all in one man — and we haven't even gotten to the Civil War yet.
During the war, DeRyee served under the Confederacy as a state chemist. His job was to help develop materials for weapons and to find sources of nitrates for the military. He also invented smokeless explosives and materials for marine torpedoes.
But here's the thing — those inventions did not see use in the Civil War. Sometimes history moves faster than the work does. After the war, he moved to Corpus Christi and opened the DeRyee and Bingham Drugstore.
And then 1867 arrived, and with it, a yellow fever epidemic. That epidemic took his son Emil. It took physicians in town.
In the middle of that grief and that vacuum of medical help, William DeRyee developed remedies for the fever — including an effective antiseptic. Later, he represented Nueces County at the world cotton exposition in New Orleans in 1885. He went on to publish important geological research for the state.
A man who started as a dissident in Bavaria, crossed an ocean, changed his name, and left his mark on Texas chemistry, geology, photography, and medicine. The marker calls him a major scientific leader in Texas history. Hard to argue with that.
What the marker says
Chemist, geologist, and photographer William DeRyee was born as William D��ry in W��rzburg, Bavaria. He was educated at the Gymnasium and Lateinschule in W��rzburg, then went on to study at the University of Munich. He participated in the 1848 uprising against King Ludwig I, but when it was suppressed, he left with other dissidents to settle in Tennessee. Here he married his wife, Dorothea Mylius from Saxony, in 1849. They had five children. He also changed his name to "DeRyee". After establishing highly effective cottonseed mills, he gathered the attention of many copper mine operators and they hired him to investigate their mines. He and his family relocated to New Braunfels, where he developed and demonstrated new photography techniques alongside other German immigrants. During the Civil War, DeRyee served under The Confederacy as a state chemist to help develop materials for weapons and to find sources of nitrates for the military. He also invented smokeless explosives, and materials for marine torpedoes, but these did not see use in the Civil War. After the war, he moved to Corpus Christi, and opened the DeRyee and Bingham Drugstore. In 1867, after a yellow fever epidemic took his son, Emil, as well as physicians in town, William DeRyee developed remedies for the fever, including an effective antiseptic. He later represented Nueces County at the world cotton exposition in New Orleans in 1885. He went on to publish important geological research for the state. DeRyee is remembered as a major scientific leader in Texas history. (2015)