Here are excerpts from an article sent to me by a new-found Casteel
researcher, name Viola. She injured both wrists so typing is difficult so I
volunteered to type to the mail list. Big Question? Anyone know more about
this Casteel?
TEXAS PARADE, 1952, page 24
The Christmas Tree Comes to Texas, Curtis Bishop
Early German settlers introduced the Uletide ritual
The story of how the Christmas tree was brought to Texas is linked with one
of the most grandiose colonization schemes launched by man, and recalls a
half-forgotten chapter out of the Lone Star past when schemers from overseas
made a bold effort to change the pattern of the western world.
For the Yuletide tree was brought to Texas by immigrants from Germany who
founded a town along two Texas rivers and named it after their leader, the
Quixotic Prince Solms Braunfels. It is quite probable that the cedar trees
decorated with paper dolls and ornaments on Christmas Eve of 1846 were the
first such Yuletide displays in America.
For those immigrants who had been brought to the Lone Star nation by the
"Adelsverein," or "German Emigration Society," it was a bleak
Christmas.
......
The Adelsverein was founded by 20 German noblemen at Biebrich-on-the-Rhone in
1842. The Association purchased a contract to settle 3,000,000 acres of
vacant Texas domain.......This tract lay some 300 miles from the Texas Coast,
but the ambitious leaders of the Verein intended to conquer this distance
with a railroad of its own and by "relay town" where settlers could live and
become gradually acclimated while the lands they were to receive were made
ready for them.
.....Prince Solms Braunfels, followed by his court attendants, moved from
Austin to the Gulf coast, buying up lands for the relay towns of Carlshafen,
CASTEEL, New Braunfels and others......
.......there were thousands of Germans eager to leave Europe if funds were
available to send them. These would-be emigrants were not of the peasant
stock either, but the scholars, the musicians and even the noblement
themselves, all willing to flee the chaos that was Middle Europe. These
Germans were related to the rulers of England, The Hanoverian regime. Count
CASTEEL, one member of the Verein, was a cousin of Prince Albert.
Question: Does anyone on the list have Casteel research from Germany to
share?
Leoneita