By Marie Hughes, director of the Chambers County Museum at Wallisville
There was a mass emigration from Germany to Texas between 1844 and 1846, sponsored by the “Adelsverein” (Society of Noble Men), officially called the “Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas.” It was spearheaded by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels from Braunfels on the Lahn, Germany. New Braunfels, Texas, was named in honor of his homeland.
During the mid-1800s, Germany experienced national oppression as authorities sought to prevent the liberal ideologies of the French Revolution from influencing the German people. This, combined with a series of poor harvests, a recession, and high unemployment, created widespread discontent that eventually erupted into the revolutions of 1848. The goal of the Adelsverein was to create a German colony in Texas to recover from the economic and political turmoil of their nation.
The Republic of Texas had land—lots of land—and its leaders were eager to extend land grants to help populate the young Republic and create a buffer between themselves and the Comanche Indians. Although the efforts of the German nobles ultimately failed, they left behind a strong German presence in Texas that persists to this day.
In three years, the Society sent 7,380 emigrants to Texas, including the Johann Stengler and Carl Bingle families from Diez, Nassau. Johann Stengler married Johannette Hankammer, the widow of Johannes Hankammer, a wagon maker from Diez who had died in 1839 at the age of 41. Johannette was left with four young sons to raise: Johann Wilhelm “John William” (age 5), Johann Karl Christian “Charles” (age 3), Friedrich Adolf “Fritz” (age 1 ½), and Karl Ludwig (age 2 months).
Much credit should be given to 25-year-old Johannes Stengler, eleven years younger than Johannette, for taking on the responsibility of her four young sons and her 10-year-old daughter from her first marriage, Wilhelmina Krantz.
It was a significant financial and emotional undertaking for the young bricklayer and chimney/fireplace inspector from Diez. Johannes (John) and Johannette began planning their emigration to the New Land soon after their marriage in 1840. However, it wasn’t until 1845, after John petitioned the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas, that they finally packed their meager belongings, bid farewell to their relatives, and set off for the docks of Diez.
At the docks, they boarded the steamboat Lukesig, which took them to Antwerp. There, they met with the family of Carl Bingle and boarded the sailing ship Harriet bound for Galveston. By this time, Johannette had given birth to two more sons, George and Rudolph Stengler. It took incredible strength of mind, fortitude of soul, and a spirit of adventure to leave behind all that was familiar and set out for an unknown land.
Before their departure, the Hankamer-Stengler emigrants were given a shadowbox containing a floral bouquet crafted from the hair of family members who stayed behind in Germany. Each strand was tenderly woven with love and memories, salted with tears, to comfort them during the lonely, challenging times when their hearts yearned for home.
The sails of the schooner Harriet billowed with the winds of promise as she charted her course for Texas and the new life awaiting the hopeful emigrants. The voyage was fraught with hardships and tumultuous seas that threatened to quench their optimism. During the final leg of their journey, navigating the rough waters of the Gulf of Mexico nearly extinguished their hope. But on Dec. 23, 1845, as the ship anchored six miles from Galveston, they caught their first glimpse of the genesis of their new life.
Finally, on Dec. 31—just two days after Texas was admitted as the 28th state of the United States—they disembarked and stepped into the promise of their new beginning.
In 1910, John Stengler described his arrival in Galveston, saying:
“We heard of the suffering of the people who had gone to said colony (in New Braunfels), and I stayed in Galveston until June 1846, when I moved to Anahuac into a house built by Mexicans. Galveston at that time was not as large as Anahuac is now, and the entire country was filled with all manner of game and wild beasts. People lived far apart in those days. There were so few settlers in the country, and none of my family understanding English, we were in a rather bad condition to get information, as there were but few Germans in these parts at that time.”
In the autumn of 1846, John moved his family to what is now called Hankamer, settling into the Andrew Weaver place. In 1848, he relocated to Double Bayou, where the family lived for nearly two years. Tragically, during their time there, Karl Ludwig, the youngest son of Johannes and Johannette Hankamer, passed away. The cause of his death and the location of his burial remain unknown.
By 1850, John and Johannette moved their family back to Crackers Neck (now Hankamer), near their daughter Wilhelmina and her husband, Charles Wilborn. John remained in the area through the Civil War and until the death of his wife, Johannette, who succumbed to smallpox on Feb. 14, 1877.
The three Hankamer brothers—John, Karl, and Fritz—were farmers and ranchers who were deeply involved in the life of the Crackers Neck settlement. Karl Hankamer owned a two-masted schooner, The Lady of the Lake, which was used to transport produce from their farms to the markets in Galveston. In 1858, Fritz Hankamer traveled to Galveston to learn the blacksmith trade, a skill his brother John assured him would be invaluable in their farming and ranching community. John Hankamer also served as Justice of the Peace and Notary Public for Chambers County.
In 1862, John, Karl, and Fritz, along with their half-brother George Stengler, enlisted in Company F of Spaight’s Battalion. The Battalion, commonly known as the “Moss Bluff Rebels,” was commanded by Captain William B. Duncan of Liberty. The company was mustered into service on April 21, 1862. Charles and John served as 1st and 3rd corporals, respectively, with John later advancing to Sergeant.
During 1864 and 1865, John William Hankamer kept a diary that recorded many fascinating observations about daily military life, providing a unique glimpse into their experiences during the Civil War.
The catastrophic disease of smallpox entered Chambers County in late 1876 when a Captain Turner from New Orleans visited the area. John lost his wife, Lurenda, and six of his children, including twin infants, during the smallpox epidemic that ravaged the county until the spring of 1877. Fritz also endured devastating losses, including his wife, Annie Middleton Chism Hankamer, and their two youngest children—a one-year-old son and a stillborn child born just a week before Annie’s death. Only his three-year-old daughter, Ella, survived. Johannette Hankamer Stengler also succumbed to the dreaded disease.
Charles’ wife, Joanna Higgenbotham Hankamer, died on February 14, 1877, at the age of 35, presumably from smallpox. It is likely that John, Charles, and Fritz had been vaccinated against smallpox during their service in the Civil War, which may have protected them from the epidemic.
James Jackson of Double Bayou heard of a smallpox vaccine and sailed to Galveston to obtain it. He launched a vaccination campaign, vaccinating his entire household, including his enslaved workers. None of them succumbed to the disease. Jackson offered the vaccine to anyone willing to take it, but tragically, ignorance and fear led most to refuse. The mortality rate among those who declined vaccination was nearly one hundred percent, as evidenced by the numerous tombstones in Chambers County bearing the death date of 1877.
Ira Alvan “Allie” Hankamer: Pioneer Postmaster and Community Builder
Ira Alvan “Allie” Hankamer and two of his sisters were the only children of John and Lurenda to survive past the 1877 epidemic, which claimed the lives of eight of their siblings, including five during the outbreak. Allie married Martha Anna Noack, with whom he had eight children. Martha also had a daughter from a previous marriage.
Allie established the Hankamer General Store near his home, which became a cornerstone of the community. At the time, mail for Crackers Neck was handled through the Turtle Bayou Post Office, established at Rob White’s store in February 1879. This system remained in place until the spring of 1904, when a post office was established in Crackers Neck, with Ira Alvan Hankamer appointed as postmaster on May 24.
As was the case with many communities, the postmaster named the postal facility, and that name eventually became the name of the town. According to Ira’s obituary, he named the post office and town in honor of his father, John William Hankamer, to recognize his family’s contributions to the community’s development. Ira served as postmaster until October 1931, when Mrs. Naomi V. Blackwell was appointed acting postmaster.
In addition to operating the general store and post office, Ira was involved in rice farming and cattle ranching, further cementing his role as a key figure in the community’s growth and prosperity.
Daniel Jett Hankamer: Steward of the Land
Daniel “Dan” Jett Hankamer was born on July 30, 1936, in Hankamer, Texas, to Ira Jett and Gladys Moor Hankamer. Raised in an agrarian lifestyle, Dan attended grade school in Hankamer before transferring to Anahuac School by the 8th grade. He graduated from Anahuac High School in 1952 and earned a bachelor’s degree in Agriculture Economics from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos in 1956.
Dan’s first marriage to Joyce A. Streetman marked the beginning of a third generation of rice farming for the Hankamer family. Together, they raised three sons: Danny, Mike, and Mitch. Dan continued the family legacy of farming and ranching and remarried in 1973 to Zelphia Jenkins Troxell, who had two daughters, Tanya and Tonya, from a previous marriage. Daniel had two brothers, Wayne and Lester. While Dan and Lester farmed and ranched on family land, Wayne pursued a career in the oil and gas service industry in Houston.
Danny Hankamer reflected on his father’s resourcefulness and influence, saying, “Dad was a good father and teacher of life itself. He taught us basic economics, farming, mechanics, and construction. He could build just about anything—if we needed it, he could make it, and it was built to last.”
One memory in particular stands out for Danny.
“I remember coming home from school one day, and Dad was laying out a design in chalk on the concrete by the rice dryers. He was planning to build a rice cart,” he said.
The frame was crafted from heavy I-beam steel and sheet metal, with a gas tank, a steering wheel, two large tires in the back, and two smaller ones in the front.
“We installed a big GMC V-8 engine with a 4-speed manual transmission geared down to handle the load. A large steel hopper sat right on the rear-end, designed to haul two combine loads of rice,” he said.
When the cart was finished, Dan took the opportunity to teach his son an important skill.
“As soon as it was complete, he taught me how to drive it. It was one of the most exciting days for me as a young teenager,” Danny recalled. “He told me I had to learn how to drive a cart before I could operate a combine.”
This milestone occurred in the summer of 1967, a time when Dan was farming approximately 200 acres.
As the years passed, Dan’s farming operations expanded.
“During the ’70s and ’80s, the rice allotment increased from 200 acres to 400 acres and continued to grow steadily into the mid-1990s,” Danny explained.
The rural lifestyle that defined Daniel Hankamer’s life began with his grandfather, Ira Alvin Hankamer (1869–1945), who settled in what was once called Crackers Neck. Alongside his wife, Martha, Ira Alvin opened a mercantile store. In the spring of 1904, the store was designated as a post office, with Ira Alvin serving as postmaster.
Before taking on the role of postmaster, Ira Alvin cleared 20 acres of timber in 1902 and began rice farming, eventually cultivating an average of 80 acres. By 1929, he had reached his peak, managing 600 acres of rice fields. To support this farming endeavor, a largepump house was built near Turtle Bayou to pump water in the Hankamer-Stowell Canal that brought water to several thousand acres of rice to other farmers in the area by 1914. Ira Alvin retired around 1931 but still raised cattle on land that was not farmed in rice. By 1930, the area really began to prosper with electricity and Gulf Oil Company coming in to drill for oil in what is now called the north and south Hankamer oil fields, which are still producing today.
The Crackers Neck settlement also became home to other prominent families, including the Weavers, Barrows, Abshiers, Moors, Lees, Smiths, Morgans, and Harmons.
It was Ira Jett Hankamer (1904-1992), Daniel’s father, who continued the family farming and ranching passing on this tradition to Daniel by the 1960s. For a brief period during the 1950’s, Jett was a CASE tractor dealer and furnished Dan with one of the first rubber tire tractors to plow the soil.
“Dad said, ‘This was the first tractor I learned to drive, it had a manual lever to gradually engage the clutch to get the tractor going, and when it did all you could do was hold on to the steering wheel because there was no power steering,'” he continued.
By the mid 1970s, Dan also farmed several hundred acres of soybeans to rotate land from constant water flushing of nutrients from the soil when growing rice. It was the decaying soybean stalks that put nitrogen back into the soil once the land was plowed before spring planting of rice again, plus soybeans were somewhat profitable. Once the rice was harvested and put in storage to dry, it was later sold through the Winnie Rice farmer’s Co-op on the open market. Once it was sold it was trucked in the winter months to the port of Houston or Beaumont. Soybeans were usually harvested in October to November and sold as a commodity through the Co-op as well.
In 1985, Daniel and Zelphia built, owned, and operated DJ’s Country Store. They started selling BBQ beef brisket, and his legendary BBQ helped create a popular eating establishment and thriving business for 17 years in Chambers County and the surrounding areas. By the mid-1990s, Daniel discontinued rice farming and converted the land into crawfish farming for 12 years. Crawfish farming was a seasonal harvest from spring to early summer, with sales affiliated with DJ’s Country Store.
He was highly respected in the community and a dedicated steward of the land, raising Hereford cattle and later crossbreeding with Brahman cattle. An avid outdoorsman, he enjoyed duck and deer hunting, gardening, and, most of all, cooking for family, friends, and neighbors. Dan was a generous man who was incredibly supportive of local events such as the Chambers County Youth Project Show, Trinity Valley Exposition, and BBQ cook-offs in Anahuac and Winnie.
He was a lifetime member of the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, a past president of the Winnie Rice Farmers Cooperative Association, a board member of Security State Bank in Anahuac for many years, an honorary director for the Southwest Cattle Raisers Association, and a past master of the Anahuac Masonic Lodge. Daniel passed away in January 2018 doing what he loved most: putting out hay to his cattle on his tractor.
The original Hankamer name was spelled Hanckhammer. The “c” was dropped earlier, and one “m” was likely removed around 1900 when they arrived in Texas. John William Hankamer (1843–1907), the original pioneer settler, was Daniel’s great-grandfather and Ira Alvin’s father.
Lester Hankamer: Memories of Family, Farming and Community
Lester Hankamer, son of Jett Hankamer, has no personal memories of his grandfather, Ira Alvan Hankamer, as he had just turned 3 years old a few months before Ira’s death. However, he takes great pride in the family history and legacy passed down through the generations.
“He was Justice of the Peace, Postmaster, and storekeeper, all in one,” Lester says of his grandfather. The store was located between the implement shop (now Arlette Hankamer Williams’ beauty shop, The Hairloom) and the big oak trees in front of the Wayne Hankamer home.
“The Hankamer store was a large two-story building, and much of the community’s activities were centered around it and the Thad Moor Store,” Lester explained. “The folks in Hankamer could purchase almost everything they needed for maintaining their household and farming needs. There was a blacksmith shop next to the garage at Ira’s house, with a forge to handle the blacksmithing needs of the community. In an 1857 letter, John William Hankamer wrote to his brother—probably Fritz, who lived in Galveston for a time—about learning the trade of blacksmithing, so it’s possible the blacksmithing trade was passed down within the family. There was also a syrup-making area near the implement shop.”
Lester also shared memories of the charcoal-making process used by Black families living in the Hankamer woods.
“They would rick it up, what we would call ricking it, and they would rick it up in I think 4-foot lengths. They would start ricking it up and leave a hollow in the center of it and put something in there that would light then they would rick up around it, then they would make 2 or 3 stacks of those logs, and they would get it up taller than this ceiling. Then they would light it, they would cover it in dirt so it wouldn’t flame but it would just smolder,” he said.
“After the process of making charcoal was finished and it cooled down, the folks would load the charcoal into sacks and bring it to the store for Ira to sell. Ira sold some, but some he took to the shipping warehouse he had on Lee’s Gully. The warehouse sat on an acre of land, and it was used to store goods to be shipped to Galveston, explained Lester. He said the ships would travel down to Turtle Bayou into the Bay and then on to Galveston. The people in Galveston used a lot of charcoal for their charcoal heaters,” he continued.
In 1948, Lester’s parents moved the family to Hankamer, and his father, Jett, had his boys tear down the old store. He made sure they saved every one of the square nails. They filled three 15-gallon wooden kegs with nails, but where they are today is anybody’s guess. All the lumber from the store was used to build the large barn on the property, as well as the smaller calf barn. Jett bought creosote posts for the uprights, but the rest of the barn was built with the store’s 1 x 12 cypress boards.
“I imagine that barn will be standing long past the time when many of us are not,” Lester declared.
The store’s windows and doors were used to build the old implement store in 1953. Initially a distributor and repair shop for Case tractors, the shop closed around 1960 and now houses Arlette’s beauty shop, which proudly retains the original entrance.
The resourcefulness of saving nails and lumber was a hallmark of those who lived through the Great Depression.
Lester said his parents survived the dirty thirties by raising sweet potatoes and corn. Meat was never an issue, as they could butcher a yearling when needed. He recalled one such instance where they hung the yearling from the old pecan tree — what they called the ‘butcher tree’ — near the water well.
While they were dressing it, two men in suits stopped by and asked what they were doing.
Jett said, “Well, we’re dressing this beef to cut it up and put it in the deep freeze. Y’all know where steaks and roasts come from, don’t you?”
Lester added, “They said no, and Dad replied, ‘Well, this is how you do it.’ They looked shocked and said, ‘Oh, Lord, we’ll never eat another piece of beef.’”
Johannes Wilhelm Hankammer, who died in Diez six years before his family sailed to Texas, could never have imagined the adventures awaiting his sons or the legacy they would leave in a wild, untamed land. It was his blood coursing through their veins that gave them the independence, resolve, and grit to face challenges with steadfast courage. He helped make them the trailblazers and influential pioneers they became. Although his life was cut short, there is no doubt he would be proud of the legacy that continues to thrive today.
Great story, absolutely. No let’s move on ok.