Nassau Plantation: The Evolution of a Texas German Slave Plantation

Appendix F. Descriptions of the Herrenhaus

249 aPPeNdIx F: Descriptions of the herrenhaus Description 1, Amanda Fallier von Rosenberg: “The house is composed of two square rooms made from oak logs. These rooms, however, are separated by a wide intervening space, something like how the threshing floor in a [German] barn unites the separate rooms. Over everything spreads a wide roof that rests in the front and the back, to the north and to the south, on columns that provide shade for two magnificent porches. When one wants to enter the house, he must go up either three or four steps, whether in the front or in the back, on to the wonderful, wide porch which runs the length of the house. Both porches have balustrades three feet high and, as mentioned, are covered by a roof supported by columns. The porches are joined by a passage, or in-between space. In this space a narrow, but decorated stairway leads to the second story where, likewise , a passage joins two rooms, one for Eugen and the other as a store room. These top rooms only have ‘Texas windows,’ that is, just slits in the wall. The bottom rooms, however, have real windows. Each room has two, one to the north with fifteen panes and one to the south, somewhat wider, with twenty panes. The most beautiful feature of the house, however, is the chimneys. They are built of stone that have been beautifully dressed and shaped (a rarity here); they are truly 250 Appendix magnificent. Using large logs, I have used them for cooking and they have yet to smoke. Now, dear friends, imagine this house so clean and neat like a jewelry box, these magnificent porches with their cedar floors . . . The entire house has only four doors, two above and two below—to the west [there is] a recent addition which one enters from the south gallery; in this room, made airy and bright by several ‘Texas windows,’ I now have my stove for cooking. . . . Rosenberg intends to board in the north gallery in order to gain two more rooms, also he intends to mount doors in the breezeway which can be opened in the heat and closed during storms. We also plan on whitewashing the walls with lime. What are the disadvantages you might ask? And here I would answer water; to be sure, we have an extraordinarily deep well, which cost a lot of money, but it yields bad water; sulfur water. That plus the fact that it takes so much effort to hoist up water, we hardly use it at all. . . . We haul water daily from the creek.” (Frau von Rosenberg an ihrer Schwägerin Fallier [Frau von Rosenberg to her sister-in-law, Fallier], Nassau Farm, March 29, 1850, Von Rosenberg Collection, Center for American History Studies, University of Texas, Austin, 67.) Description 2, Amanda Fallier von Rosenberg: “You also have no idea of what one calls a house in Texas—a rectangular room, high and airy, with a good roof is called here a house. Among these a building like ours, six years ago the best and still one of the few best, is called a fort, a castle, a prince’s house, manor house. Our house is called these things in fun. But it is pretty and, I might add, romantic. . . .” (Amanda Fallier von Rosenberg to Auguste und Emilie, May 25, 1850, Ancestral Voices, 25.) Description 3, Peter Carl von Rosenberg: “Now the description of my estate: the manor house, sometimes called the prince’s house because a Prince von Solms, as an agent of the Adelsverein in Texas, had lived here a year or two, has two rooms downstairs with a big space in-between which connects the north and south galleries; there are two rooms upstairs connected by a lofty open space. I now sit on the south gallery writing. It is 251 Appendix the most convenient place for us to stay; some forty steps to the left there is a shed with three rooms: first, a harness room for me; second a room for my German laborer; and third a room for my Negro Toms. Behind the house is a stable with four partitions for horse stalls, chickens, and cow stalls. Galleries are attached to all these buildings, but not finished. I shall close these with split oak or cedar boards in country fashion, and use them as sheep, calf, and pig pens, although...