Chapter 5:
The American Promised Land
The Drewes clan is heading south away from snow and cold. Where the Rio Grande River empties into the Gulf of Mexico is about as far south as you can go in the continental USA. The Rio Grande River forms the boundary between Texas and Mexico.
On December 15, 1910 the 5 families – the Heinrich Drewes family, the Fred Drewes family, the William Drewes family, the Heinrich Heuer family, and the Jakob Kruse family - passed through Portal, North Dakota by train, leaving Canada for Texas. The train trip from Ellerslie to Texas took 5 days.
The families were going to Texas to buy land that was part of an irrigation project that was founded by the American Rio Grande Land and Irrigation Company on Sept 15, 1907. The company was building a town at Mercedes, on the north side of the Rio Grande River. The land was part of the Capisallo Ranch owned by Jim Welles. The area was known as “The Pear Orchard” because of the vast numbers of prickly pear cactus growing there.
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A family farming in Mercedes (1914)
The project started with the Leasburg Diversion Dam and 6 miles of supporting canal. But to get sufficient water to make the project viable, a larger dam was needed. The Elephant Butte Dam was started in 1908. But that dam project was stopped over concerns of upriver flooding. By the time the Drewes families arrived in Mercedes in 1911, the block of land that they occupied did not have an assured supply of water. The halted dam project was resumed in 1912 and the reservoir started filling in 1915. The expanded canals were built between 1914 and 1915.
A comment on the Rio Grande River: In 1800, the river was wide, deep, and fast flowing. The 20th century saw many dams and projects built upriver, taking water out of the river and reducing its flow. Today at Mercedes the river is non-existent for most of the year. In 2001, the Rio Grande failed to reach the Gulf of Mexico.
One of the attractive prospects of this project was that the settlers would be able to hire cheap Mexican labor to do the manual work. To show this, the page below from Henry Drewes' ledger from that time shows some of his expenditures. These were likely matched or exceeded by his father and uncles. A picture of a Mexican “hycal” is included. In its promotion, the Irrigation Company suggested that the “raw land” using Mexican contractors could be cleared and prepared for farming for $9.00 to $15.00 per acre.
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The earliest crops grown were alfalfa, corn and cabbage. Cabbage was considered one of the cheapest crops to be put in. Cabbage also could sustain prolonged periods of transportation. Below is a promo picture of a cabbage field in about 1910. William Drewes also grew cabbage.
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During the summer of 1911, the group was temporarily augmented by Friedrich and Bertha Fuhrop. They had been friends in Jetterbuch and neighbors at Ellerslie. They had gone to Minnesota that year to visit Friedrich’s brother George. From there they had journeyed to Mercedes with the thought of moving there.
Due to their strong Lutheran faith, one of the first steps after the families arrived in Mercedes was to construct Ebenezer Lutheran Church in 1911. As he had been at Ellerslie, William Drewes was a leader and he and Henry Kruse became elders of the church. This photo taken at the dedication of the Church shows the combined clan of Drewes, Heuer and Kruse families as part of the congregation.
Ebenezer Church in Mercedes (c. 1911)
At that time, Ebenezer Lutheran co-existed with another Lutheran church in Mercedes, the Immanuel Lutheran (Missouri Synod). There was also a Finnish Lutheran Church north of Mercedes. Ebenezer’s church affiliation is unknown, but it was likely either with the First Evangelical Synod of Texas or the Texas Synod of the Lutheran Synod of Iowa and Other States.
At the same time, Immanuel Lutheran was establishing a cemetery. The property was wrongly deeded to Ebenezer Lutheran. Correcting the error on Aug 14, 1914, William Drewes and Henry Kruse transferred the property to J. George Birkham, C. A. Carlson, and William Buckholz, trustees of Immanuel Lutheran.
The first church was a modest 26 to 28-foot by 40-foot structure on land that had been given by the American Land and Irrigation Company. The church was dedicated in 1911 as Ebenezer Gemaide Lutheranish Kirche, or in English, Ebenezer Congregation of the Lutheran Church.
Why “Ebenezer”? The biblical answer is in 1 Samuel, Chapter 7, verses 5 – 14. In the battles between the Israelites and the Philistines, God intervened. After the battle, Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshnah and called its name Ebenezer (translated to mean the stone of help), for he said “Hitherto the Lord has helped us”.
The families had a struggle farming. Crops included cabbage, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, corn, cotton and watermelons. Fred Drewes would remember the pride his father had after raising a prize-winning watermelon that weighed over 100 pounds.
In 1904 the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico railroad had arrived at Brownsville. Unfortunately this still left a 20 mile wagon haul from Mercedes to the railroad at Brownsville. As a result prices were low at Mercedes.
The long delayed construction of the Elephant Butte Dam resumed in 1912 and the reservoir started filling in 1915.
But now a Mexican became a new problem. Pancho Villa had led the North Division of the Constitutionist Army to the ousting of Victoriano Huerta from the presidency of Mexico in July 1914. But Pancho Villa, in attempting to become president, had his army defeated by Venustiano Carranza and his army of the south in 1915.
Pancho Villa and his remnant army then became a terrorist group in northern Mexico. Villa led raids across the U.S.--Mexican border, including a raid against the small U.S.-Mexican town in the battle of Columbus March 9, 1916. The US government sent the US army, under General John J. Pershing, who chased Pancho Villa around Mexico for nine months without success. But Pancho Villa’s raids had a destabilizing effect. It forced the families to not use lights at night or do anything to draw the attention of Villa’s raiders. Out of fear at times, the families would spend the night hiding in the fields. At least one of their closest neighbors was fatally shot during a skirmish/raid.
The financial difficulties, along with the raids of Pancho Villa would finally force the last family members to abandon the Texas settlement.
Postscript
In March of 2019 on a trip to Mercedes, Texas Jean and I met with Pastor Weber and the congregation of Immanuel Lutheran Church. We were able to visit a senior member of their congregation, Helen Vogel, and learned the history of the churches. Helen was nearly 99 years of age at the time, and is blessed with a sound mind. She and her family were members of Immanuel Lutheran and so had a limited knowledge of Ebenezer Lutheran. She could remember going to Ebenezer as a child to attend Christmas concerts. She thought that Ebenezer Lutheran ceased to exist as a church in the late 1930’s and the building was destroyed.
With the help of members of Immanuel Lutheran I was able to review the burial records of Immanuel Lutheran cemetery and the burial records of the other cemeteries in Mercedes. I could not find any records of family members. I can only conclude that Ilsa Heuer and her daughter Ann Dorothea, as well as Jacob Kruse had been buried on their farms. When the families moved from Mercedes, the graves were abandoned and consequently lost.
We acknowledge and appreciate the assistance provided by Pastor Ed Weber and the congregation of Immanuel Lutheran Church of Mercedes, Texas in researching the Drewes family’s church at Mercedes. Grateful thanks goes to congregation members Don Vogel and Dan and Suzanne Wehling.
Family Members in Texas
Patriarch
Johann Heinrich Christoph Drewes 1856
Wife: Anna Maria Elizabeth Westerman 1855
Sons: Heinrich Christoph Friedrich 1879
Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm 1887
Wife, Christine Dorothea 1889
Brother-in-Law
Hans Heinrich Jakob Kruse 1857
Wife: Sophie Westerman 1857
Children: Heinrich (Henry) 1879
Friedrich Jakob Karl 1884
Wife, Emily Klatt 1892
Son, Edmond 1910
Heinrich Friedrich Peter 1894
Brother
Johann Heinrich Friedrich Drewes 1860
Wife: Marie Christina Dorothea Euhus 1870
Children: Heinrich Wilhelm Friedrich 1894
Friedrich Heinrich Herman 1898
Marie Dorothea Erna 1901
Marie Sophie Alma 1902
Brother
Heinrich Wilhelm Drewes 1863
Wife: Catharina Magdalena Dorothea Helmke 1870
Children: Marie Magdalene Dora 1892
Heinrich Hermann Wilhelm 1894
Heinrich Herman 1900
Heinrich August 1902 Died in Alberta
Emma Helene 1903
Ella Frieda Alma 1906
Heinrich Karl 1909
Sister and Brother-in-Law
Heinrich Friedrich Christoph Heuer 1868
Wife: Ilsa Marie Dorothea Drewes 1869
Children: Heinrich Friedrich Hermann 1898
Ann Dorothea 1909
Total: 5 Families Deaths in Texas:
30 members Hans Heinrich Jakob Kruse about 1914
20 adults Ilsa Marie Dorothea Heuer – yellow fever 1915
10 children under 18 Ann Dorothea Heuer – yellow fever 1915
Possibly one baby