[Texas Immigration]: Frasch, Gustav:

Liederbuch - von dem Algier’schen Liederschatz. [Letterbook, in German, Which Describes the Period Leading Up to Gustav Frasch's Immigration from Germany to Texas].

Hessigheim: 1850. [380]pp. in pen, interspersed with thirteen color printed illustrations. Small quarto. Contemporary half calf with marbled boards, pastedown manuscript title to front cover. Light wear to binding, some light toning and foxing to contents. Very good. Item #2643

The present work is the original manuscript ‘Liederbuch’ (Songbook) compiled in 1850 by Gustav Frasch, then a 16-year old living in Hessigheim, Germany. Four years later Frasch immigrated to America, where he became one the leading residents of San Antonio during the second half of the 19th Century. The manuscript captures the sense of wanderlust that Frasch and many other young Germans felt during this period, longing to leave a predictable life in Germany for adventure and excitement in America. Frasch painstakingly copied out 455 songs and poems, many concerning diverse international subjects. His written text is interspersed with printed, colored illustrations, some featuring portraits of foreign adventurers, such as Captain James Cook and Napoleon Bonaparte. Taken altogether, the work is the product of an insatiably curious and adventurous spirit, harnessing the mentality of those who dared to make the voyage across the high seas to America.

Gustav Frasch (1834-1917) was one of the most prominent citizens of San Antonio during the second half of the 19th Century. He was born in Hessigheim, near Heilbronn, in Württemberg, Germany, the son of a successful merchant. He received a good education in local schools, and for four years apprenticed as a merchant. However, as the present Liederbuch proves, Frasch was a highly intelligent and restless young man who longed to escape the relatively comfortable, yet staid, existence of a small-town German trader for a life of adventure in a faraway land. Like thousands of his countrymen before, Frasch was attracted to America, and in 1854, he sailed across the Atlantic aboard the St. Nicholas, landing at New York. He remained there for a year before moving to Cincinnati, where he joined the U.S. Army. He joined Company K, Second Cavalry, then one of only three cavalry regiments in America. He was posted to Fort Belknap (today in Young County), Texas, and in 1856 made his first visit to San Antonio.

In 1860, Frasch was discharged from the army and settled at the German colony at Fredericksburg, Texas, where he married fellow German immigrant, Aliss Christina Schuessler. He took up ranching, but the Civil War suddenly interrupted his new endeavors. He soon found himself serving as a brigade quartermaster in the Confederate Army, stationed in Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1864, Frasch moved to San Antonio, where he worked as a Confederate administrator based in the Alamo. He also served as a lieutenant in the Third Texas Frontier Battalion, protecting frontier settlers from marauders, while also being elected Chief Justice of Gillespie County. After the war, he served as a military administrator in the U.S. Army based in San Antonio.

In 1872, Frasch was elected city assessor of San Antonio, serving in that position for 23 years, until 1895. During his generation in the post -- which oversaw all property development across the city -- Frasch played a major role in the expansion of San Antonio which grew during his tenure from a town of 12,000 inhabitants to a metropolitan center of 65,000 residents. The present volume provides an interesting insight into the early background of this important and prominent Texan.

Price: $1,750