My wife and I celebrated our 34th anniversary in the small town of Comfort, Texas. We spent Friday night in a small cottage and awoke to a Saturday morning temperature of 11 degrees Fahrenheit. So much for Comfort. Actually, it was quite cozy in our little cottage, but we decided it was a bit too brisk for our normal morning walk. We had been to Comfort before (in warmer times), but I wanted to go back because I didn’t know Comfort’s history during our first visit.
Comfort was founded by German Freethinkers (Deutche Freidenker) in the mid-19th century. That entire area of the Texas Hill Country was once over 50% German as the names of the towns attest: Neu Braunfels, Fredricksburg, Boerne, Greune, etc. The Freethinkers had no interest in organized religion. The first church was not built until 1892. Comfort’s inhabitants believed in freedom, and as the Civil War approached, they were abolitionists and were against secession.
Texas joined the Confederacy. Many residents of Comfort sided with the Union, and a group banded together and left for Mexico to avoid being drafted into the Confederate Army. They were ambushed and massacred at Nueces in August, 1862. The wounded were executed, and some drowned in the Rio Grande trying to escape. Their bodies were left to rot. The citizens of Comfort gathered their bones and buried them in a mass grave in Comfort. They erected a monument called Treue der Union (Loyalty to the Union). It is the oldest Civil War monument in Texas and the only monument to Unionists in all the states of the former Conferacy. It is in the national registry of historic places, and it is one of only six sites in the nation that is authorized to fly the flag at half staff every day of the year. The flag flying there has 36 stars, one for every resident killed in the massacre.
Visiting the monument is a profoundly moving experience. Click on the image to enlarge.
Comfort has another memorial to the Deutche Freidenker in the downtown area. It was erected by Central Texas Freethinkers, and it commemorates them and their contributions to freedom and the rich history of the area.
I have intentionally made the picture big so that you can read it.
On the lighter side, we visited an antique mall across the street from this monument. It is huge. It must have tens of thousands of items from small to large. While I was browsing an employee came up and asked if he could help me find anything in particular. I asked if there was anything among all these items that might help commemorate the Founding German Freethinkers. His response was, “I wouldn’t know about anything like that around here.” Right.
