Was a Texan the First Man to Fly in an Airplane?

It is believed that this glass plate negative shows Jacob Brodbeck's airplane after it crashed in 1865, although this information has not been verified. (SC14120)

One often repeated story of Texas history claims that German immigrant and Hill Country resident Jacob Brodbeck was the first man to fly in an airplane. Although accounts vary, the event allegedly occurred on September 20, 1865, approximately five months following the conclusion of the Civil War and almost four decades before the Wright brothers’ flight experiments on North Carolina’s Outer Banks between 1900 and 1903.

According to the Handbook of Texas Online, Brodbeck’s “aviation achievements remain shrouded in doubt.” This is primarily because documentary evidence is largely lacking, as Brodbeck’s drawings or blueprints for his airplane have not survived and descriptions from eyewitnesses (e.g. letters, journal entries, or newspaper reports) have never been found.

However, materials at the DRT Library do appear to suggest that, despite uncertainties about whether Brodbeck ever actually flew his airplane, he was working on a project aimed at accomplishing this feat.

A republished copy of Jacob Brodbeck's notice, which appeared in the Galveston Tri-Weekly News on August 7, 1865.

In her work Jacob Brodbeck “Reached for the Sky” in Texas, descendant Anita Tatsch includes a photocopy of an article written by Brodbeck that was printed in the Galveston Tri-Weekly News on August 7, 1865. In this article, Brodbeck wrote, “For more than twenty years I have labored to construct a machine which should enable man to use, like a bird, the atmospheric region as the medium of his travels.” Brodbeck’s main purpose in writing the article was to attract funding for the construction of a large “air-ship,” the design of which he intended to patent. “I have therefore concluded to collect subscriptions,” Brodbeck wrote of his financial plans.

“These subscriptions I shall not ask as donations, but as shares, to be refunded together with a part of the proceeds of the sale of the patent right, or the sale of air-ships, as the case may be. I have put the price of one share at five dollars. Every shareholder will receive a certificate, securing to him a proportionate interest in the proceeds of the enterprise.”

A document contained in the library’s archival collections demonstrates and verifies the financial strategy Brodbeck outlined in the newspaper. The document contains four stock certificates, each for a quarter share of stock that San Antonio physician Ferdinand Herff purchased in Brodbeck’s airplane venture. Discovered by Herff’s son in 1924, the stock certificates were donated to the library by granddaughter Zelime Herff Simpson in 1966.

Ferdinand Herff's stock certificates, which helped fund Jacob Brodbeck's efforts to develop an "air-ship."

At the same time, Simpson also donated a final item related to Jacob Brodbeck’s “air-ship”: a six-page typed document entitled “Detailed specifications written by Jacob Brodbeck of an airship made by him.” A note attached to the end of the specifications indicates that the copy in the library’s collections is a transcription and translation of the original, the location of which is not known. According to the addendum, the specifications were “carefully prepared and written in the handwriting of the late Jacob Brodbeck prior to the construction of his airship which worked successfully as far as it would at that time. It was translated from German to English by his granddaughter, Miss Annie Brodbeck…in 1932.”

The first page of a translated and transcribed copy of Jacob Brodbeck's specifications for an "air-ship."

While these documents offer tantalizing evidence that Texan Jacob Brodbeck spent many years working to develop, construct, finance, and patent a means for mechanical flight, whether historians can accurately consider him the first man to fly in an airplane remains a mystery.

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Meet the DRT Library Staff: Beverly Ewald

At the DRT Library, the anniversary of each staff member’s date of hire is celebrated with cake or a similarly delicious dessert. Since cake is not easily shared electronically, we are instead going to observe hire dates on the blog with a new series of “meet the staff” entries that share information about each member of the library team. First up is Beverly Ewald, who started working at the DRT Library in September 2008.

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Beverly Ewald, DRT Library Cataloging Librarian.

I am the newest member of the DRT Library staff. As the Catalog Librarian, I have the responsibility of assigning call numbers and subject headings to all of the new books that the Library receives as well as updating the online catalog and making corrections or revisions as necessary. I also take my turn helping patrons with their research when they come into the Library and answering e-mail requests for information.

I have been doing genealogy as a hobby for many years, and I enjoy the challenge of family research: it’s just like finding missing pieces of a gigantic puzzle, and it is a lot of fun to meet distant cousins you have recently discovered.

I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology from the University of Texas at San Antonio and my Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

My previous work in libraries has included a high school library, a private college library, the Archdiocese of San Antonio Archives, several church libraries, the Nonprofit Resource Center of Texas Library, and the Bulverde/Spring Branch Public Library.

Other employment has included ownership and management of several small businesses including two custom picture framing stores; a maid service; a business that specialized in residential and commercial window cleaning and new construction cleanup; and a business that specialized in residential, commercial, and auto window tinting.

My husband, Ken, and I enjoy living in the Hill Country north of San Antonio. We have a garden and like to make pickles and jelly and can tomatoes and other vegetables. We both also enjoy wildlife photography. We attend church at The Branches in Bulverde, an experimental new church development with combined Lutheran and Presbyterian roots.

Review of the Family History Seminar, “Land Research Workshop”

From left to right, Elaine Milam Vetter, DRT Library Committee Chairman; Donald Raney; Leslie Stapleton, DRT Library Director.

On Saturday, September 5, the DRT Library held its ninth family history seminar. This year’s speaker was Donald Raney, a sixth-generation Texan who has been an active genealogist for more than thirty years. He teaches genealogy courses at Richland College in Dallas and has presented sessions at many genealogical conferences throughout his career. His recently published book, Martin Varner, Texas Pioneer, 1785-1844, is about his great-great-great-grandfather.

Even though land records can be difficult to locate, navigate, use, and interpret, Mr. Raney began the seminar by arguing that they remain a highly valuable resource for genealogists for several reasons.

• Before 1850, over 90% of American males owned land. This means that, if you had ancestors in the United States prior to 1850, chances are that you can find information about them in land records. This is important, asserted Mr. Raney, considering that many landowners were ordinary farmers who may have left a limited trail of records besides land documents.

• Land records can assist in differentiating between individuals with the same name living in the same area at the same time.

• Land records were among the first documents reconstructed after fires at county courthouses. These recreated records were based on landowners’ copies of deeds. Thus, while fires, wars, and natural disasters have destroyed other types of documents that might be helpful for genealogists, land records are usually still extant.

While Mr. Raney also talked about Texas land records and historic routes of migration in the United States, his primary focus was how to conduct genealogical research in state land states and federal land states.

Map showing federal land states in blue and state land states in cream. Image courtesy of www.nationalatlas.gov.

State land states are those states that retained the right to dispose of land within their borders. Lands in these states were never part of the public domain. The twenty state land states include the original thirteen colonies (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia) plus Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, and Hawaii.

The remaining thirty states are federal land states. When the United States was established, the state land states retained title to all public land within their boundaries. However, all of their land claims outside their boundaries were ceded to the United States government. As new territories were purchased or ceded to the federal government, title to all vacant lands in these territories was vested in it. These new territories became the public domain, and the federal government controlled the distribution of these lands.

Donald Raney speaking at the Family History Seminar.

Mr. Raney explained that genealogists need to be aware of the significant differences that exist between state land states and federal land states, which include:

• How land was organized and measured: In state land states, land was described using metes and bounds, a method of surveying property which made use of natural physical and topographic features (e.g. trees, creeks, rivers, and swamps) in conjunction with measurements and artificially designated objects or places. By comparison, land in federal land states was divided using the public land survey system, which created grids of townships and ranges that were then subdivided into smaller sections.

The survey field notes (first page only shown here) taken for land David Crockett received in Bexar County are typical of the metes and bounds method.

Diagram showing how land in federal land states was divided into grids. Image courtesy of www.nationalatlas.gov.

• Where land records can be found: In state land states, records documenting original landowners (i.e. individuals who acquired property from the government) can be found in the appropriate state archives. In federal land states, these documents can be found in agencies of the federal government such as the National Archives and the Bureau of Land Management. In both types of states, subsequent landowners can be found in deed indexes and books, which are located in county records.

Throughout his four lectures, Mr. Raney discussed land records within the broader context of history and provided specific, practical information about how to access such documents. He talked about the history of how land has been distributed and acquired throughout American history as well as how governments have recorded those processes and transactions, arguing that using land records requires an understanding of these topics. Additionally, Mr. Raney described numerous places – including archives, libraries, and websites – where land records can be accessed and provided tips and methods for effectively using land documents for genealogical research.

Seminar attendees came away with much useful information from Mr. Raney.

Armed with a protractor, participants practiced mapping land boundaries and drawing plats using the metes and bounds method of land measurement and description.

Many thanks to Mr. Raney for providing such thought-provoking information and to the participants who attended this year’s Family History Seminar.

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Adrian Woll Captures San Antonio and Takes Prisoners

On September 11, 1842, Mexican general Adrián Woll and his force of 12,000 men captured San Antonio. Woll’s expedition reflected Mexico’s refusal to recognize Texas independence and its belief that Texas was merely a rebellious province. The expedition was also part of continued border skirmishes between Texas and Mexico, which persisted from the end of the Texas Revolution (1835-1836) until the Mexican War (1846-1848). It followed six months after Brigadier General Rafael Vásquez’s raid on San Antonio in March 1842, and Texans responded to Woll’s attack by launching the Somervell and Mier expeditions.

When Woll’s forces captured San Antonio, several prominent San Antonio citizens also became their prisoners; they, along with Texas soldiers captured in the battles that followed, were marched to Mexico City and held in Perote prison.

Samuel Augustus Maverick, 1803-1870. (SC96.154)

Among the prisoners was Samuel A. Maverick, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence who was also a businessman, landowner, and government official. Maverick had left his family, who had already fled San Antonio in advance of Vásquez’s raid, with friends near La Grange on the Colorado River. He returned to San Antonio in order to take part in the fall term of the Fourth District Court of Texas; he was defending Shields Brooks against the city of San Antonio in a dispute over an allegedly unpaid fifty-peso fee when Woll’s forces entered the city. Approximately sixty Anglo-Americans were captured, including Maverick and everyone else – the judge, jurors, court attachés, attending witnesses, and attorneys – who had also been in court.

Mary Ann Adams Maverick, 1818-1898. (SC96.153)

During his seven-month imprisonment, Samuel Maverick left behind his wife, Mary Ann Adams Maverick, who wrote in her memoirs, “I tried to follow [my husband's] advice and kept up at times a semblance of cheerfulness, but I was then only twenty-four years of age – and almost a child in experience. I had the care of three helpless little children [one of whom was seriously ill with typhoid fever] and the birth of a fourth to look to in the future – a refuge in a strange land and my husband a captive in the power of a cruel and treacherous foe.”

Waddy Thompson's letter to Samuel Maverick, March 16, 1843.

Two interesting items from the library’s archival collections of Maverick family records help document Samuel Maverick’s experiences in Perote prison. The first, shown above, is a letter written by Waddy Thompson, who was related to Maverick by marriage and who in 1843 was the U.S. minister to Mexico stationed in Mexico City. Thompson was instrumental in acquiring a release for Samuel Maverick and others. In the above letter, Thompson informs Maverick that his freedom had been secured:

Mexico March 16th 43

Dear Maverick,

I have this moment received a letter from President Santa Anna informing me that orders had this day been sent for the liberation of yourself Jones & Hutchison and that you are first to come here I am not sorry for this as it will not delay yr [your] departure for the Unites States & will offer me an oppertunity [sic] of serving you and you of serving the great city of Mexico

Yrs W THompson

On the back of the letter, Samuel Maverick noted “order of 16th[;] this recd 18th[;] chains taken off 19^th[;] Begin journey evng. of 22^nd[;] arrive at Puebla 25th.”

Document releasing Samuel Maverick from Perote prison, March 31, 1843.

The second related document in the Maverick family papers is Samuel Maverick’s prison release. On the reverse side, he copied a map of the route to Veracruz, where he boarded a U.S. Navy ship en route to the United States. Maverick made it back to Texas in late April 1843.

Detail of a map drawn by Samuel Maverick on the back of his prison release. To the right of this map he wrote, "Altitude of Mexico and of the Road to Veracruz, drawn from an engraved Map in the City of Mexico."

Detail of a second map drawn by Samuel Maverick on the back of his prison release, showing the altitudes of cities along his route from Mexico City to Veracruz on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Maverick Family Papers at the Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin, contains correspondence and journals that also document Samuel Maverick’s journey to Mexico City and his experiences in Perote prison as well as the effect of his absence on the rest of his family. Selections from these materials are quoted and discussed in Turn Your Eyes Toward Texas: Pioneers Sam and Mary Maverick by Paula Mitchell Marks and Memoirs of Mary A. Maverick: A Journal of Early Texas, arranged by Mary A. Maverick and her son, George Madison Maverick.

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DRT Library’s Archivist Passes Certification Exam

Caitlin Donnelly, CA, Archivist at the DRT Library.

Congratulations to Caitlin Donnelly, archivist at the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library, on passing the archival certification examination.

The library’s previous two archivists were also certified.

Administered by the Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA), the exam is offered each August at sites around the country and at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists (SAA). The three-hour exam is comprised of one hundred multiple-choice questions. It tests candidates’ knowledge of the duties that professional archivists commonly perform in the course of their work as well as their understanding of the theories and principles underlying those responsibilities. The exam contains questions about each of the seven major domains of archival practice, which include selection, appraisal, and acquisition; arrangement and description; reference services and access; preservation and protection; outreach, advocacy, and promotion; management of archival programs; and professional, ethical, and legal responsibilities.

Caitlin began working at DRT Library in July 2008 and since then has been busy managing the library’s 450 archival collections. In addition to being a certified archivist, she also has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities – American Civilization from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2004); a Master of Arts degree in public history from North Carolina State University in Raleigh (2006); and a Master of Science degree in library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2008).

Processing Continues on the Joseph Elicson Photograph Collection

Mr. Glen Skaggs works with photographs from the Elicson collection.

For the past several months, Glen Skaggs has been spending his Tuesday mornings volunteering at the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library, working to identify people, places and buildings, organizations, businesses, and events in the Joseph Elicson Photograph Collection. This is no easy task considering that the collection contains approximately 200 prints and, while some images are easily identifiable, the majority of the photographs are not labeled with names or dates.

The photographs contained in the collection were taken between 1940 and the early 1980s by the late Joe Elicson, a commercial photographer in San Antonio. The images document the twentieth-century history of the city. In addition to running his business, Mr. Elicson also served as the principal photographer for the DRT Library, creating professional copies of library materials for patrons.

An undated photograph in the Elicson collection of unidentified Cub Scouts in front of the Alamo. (SCElicson.09.001)

The Elicson collection – which includes approximately 8,000 photographic negatives in addition to the prints being examined by Mr. Skaggs – came to the library in two parts. The first group, which contained mostly prints, was given by Mr. Elicson before he retired. In 1998, the library received a second group of materials comprised primarily of negatives. The new owners of Mr. Elicson’s Blanco property found the images in a barn on the grounds and donated them to the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC). Knowing that the DRT Library already possessed many of Mr. Elicson’s images, ITC archivists transferred the negatives to the library in order to keep the collection together at one repository.

Mr. Skaggs is one of several volunteers who have worked on processing the Elicson collection. Santiago Escobedo initially arranged the prints into a hierarchy of general subjects and subtopics. Amy Canon worked on cleaning the negatives; placing them in acid-free, archival envelopes; categorizing them; listing them in a computerized inventory; and trying to match images with names or places. Dr. Jill Anderson focused on images of Boysville taken during the 1950s and 1960s and worked to identify the people and events shown. Most recently, Sarah Tomka also worked on housing and identifying negatives in the collection.

The Elicson collection contains several images of Rosita Fernandez Almaguer singing at WOAI studios. She was a beloved singer who was known as San Antonio's "first lady of song" and "favorite rose." (SCElicson.09.002)

Mr. Skaggs brings a great deal of expertise and knowledge to his work with the Elicson collection. Even though he was born and raised in Kentucky, he considers himself a Texan because he has resided in San Antonio for more than fifty years. Four years ago he retired from being an independent personal property appraiser, a career he enjoyed for more than twenty years. Mr. Skaggs was a member of the International Society of Appraisers, and he worked primarily with antiques, collectibles, and household contents. During the same period, Mr. Skaggs was also a museum volunteer, first for the San Antonio Museum Association and then, upon its desolution, at its two constituent organizations, the Witte Museum and the San Antonio Museum of Art. As a volunteer at these museums, Mr. Skaggs worked as a docent and completed projects (such as writing condition reports) in the collections department.

Please contact or visit the library to learn more about the Elicson photograph collection or to access the photoprint subject guide.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.