Anna Mary Elisabeth Dreyer

Photo Credit: Rosa G. Gonzales

News Item

Dreyers
"Story of Romance, Heartaches Behind Pioneer Business Woman"
By Jerry D'Unger

Sealed in a copper casket beneath a corner of Corpus Christi's newest business building (NB this was the new Montgomery Wards on Chaparrel and Peoples Streets—MAH) like fragments of a story that runs back through a century of heartbreaking and hazard, through hurricane and romance in old New Orleans, to find its beginning in deep laid plans to place Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph upon Mexico's throne.  In the 1830s there lived in Freiberg, Austria, a young man named Ludwig Maximilian.  For the purposes of this story his surname shall be given as Dreyer, the name of the family that nursed the children of the royal house of Austria.  He was a very elegant young man, if we are to judge from the only likeness extant, and given to tight-fitting lavender trousers and flowered silk waistcoats.  He affected the wrapped, bow-tied stock of that day, and wore his hair in curling ringlets upon the nape of his neck.  It must not be thought, however, that he was merely the elegant young man.  He was a highly educated one as well.  He was a graduate of the University of Heidelberg, a great distinction then.  He spoke all the languages of Europe, and was well versed in mathematics, and all the sciences of his time.  Sometime in the thirties this young man set forth upon a mission that had to do with the plans of France and Austria for Maximilian.  The exact nature of his task is not known since the documents that he carried have not to this day, a century later, been translated.  Armed with letters from the royal court of Austria, and from the king of Prussia, latter Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany, he traveled through France, Switzerland, England, and Scotland.  That the nature of his errand was secret is evidenced by the fact that he traveled incognito, frequently working his way on sailing vessels in one capacity or another.  Included in the documents now in the possession of his daughter are honorable discharges from the British Brig Provost, and other vessels.  The turn of the decade found young Ludwig engaged as a steward on one of the palatial Mississippi river boats of song and story.  He had reached the new world, though still thousands of miles from his intended destination.  Whether or not the steamer upon which he served beaver-hatted dandies or crinolined ladies of the Old South ever raced the "Whippoorwill and other river queens of the forties is not known.  But for the sake of romance we may suppose that she did.  At any rate, young Ludwig found time to woo and win the heart of the 15-year-old adopted daughter of the steamboat's captain.  This beautiful girl—and if we are to judge from pictures taken later, she must have been beautiful—had had a tragic life well designed to appeal to the young Austrian adventurer.  She had arrived, at the age of three, with her parents, a brother and a sister in New Orleans.  Three days after their arrival the parents were dead of the dread black vomit.  That they had been people of importance in their native Hanover is evident from the fact that they brought to America a chest full of gold coins. 

One of the little girl's earliest memories was of some one spreading three white sheets upon the floor and dividing the gold from the chest into three equal heaps, one for the brother, one for the sister, and one for herself.  She had been adopted by a woman in New Orleans of whom she remembered little except that she was cruel.  After a short time the little orphan, unable to bear further persecution ran away, leaving the Hanover gold behind her.  Later she had found peace and happiness with the Mississippi river captain and his wife.  But gold again threatened the happiness of the little girl on the cypress crowned banks of the Mississippi.  Rumors of the great strikes in California penetrated even magnolia-scented courtyards of the Creole City.  And the tales were fabulously exaggerated—as tales of gold must always be.  At length the captain—enthralled by stories of easy wealth—decided to remove, with his family, to far off California.  The decision fell like a blight upon young Ludwig's plans.  He knew that should his sweetheart accompany her foster parents to California and he proceed to Mexico, they would never see each other again.  There was only one course of action open, and they took it.  They were married, though the bride was barely 16.  Following the departure of the brave captain to seek gold the young couple lived happily in New Orleans for some months.  Then Ludwig's duty urged him on.  It was time to go to Mexico to prepare the land for Maximilian's coming.  The young couple took passage on a sailing vessel bound for Puerto Isabel, on the other side of the Gulf of Mexico.  For some unexplained reason their household effects, and a chest containing Ludwig's credentials and other documents, were shipped on a smuggling vessel bound for the same port.  From Puerto Isabel it was the intention of the young adventurer to go overland to Mexico City.  After some days at sea the vessel encountered a hurricane.  For hours she battled the elements and, at last, her captain elected to run for the nearest sheltered water.  So it came about that one morning a little sailing vessel made fast to the landing at the foot of what is now Schatzell street.  Col. H. L. Kinney, owner of what was known then as Kinney's ranch, went, surrounded by Mexicans and Indians, to see what errand had brought the schooner unbidden to his wharf.  As soon as the vessel was moored the bride stepped upon the wharf.  She would, she declared, go no farther.   Here was dry, firm land, and here she would stay, though it be the heart of the wilderness.  Arguments of the groom proved futile.  The girl, accustomed to the quiet and peace of New Orleans and the tranquility of the Mississippi found the Gulf too boisterous for her liking.  Thrones might topple, and the plans of the House of Hapsburg come to naught, but she would not face the sea again.  There were difficulties, of course, Colonel Kinney protested that there was no shelter fit for a lady of quality.  No matter, the lady insisted, she would stay.  Waving his hand in the direction of the broad expanse of chaparral behind him Colonel Kinney asked the lady to select a suitable spot.  His men, he said, would proceed at once to erect a rude shelter for the night.  Later they would make her more comfortable.  Accompanied by her husband, the young wife walked away from the beach.  A few hundred feet brought her to a slight rise in the terrain, some five feet above the surrounding land.  It was a natural clearing, and was thickly sprinkled with wild flowers.  To the girl, still terrified and ill from her experience, the spot seemed to offer a safe haven.  Her husband waved his neckerchief and Kinney's henchmen proceeded to the little clearing.  Trees were felled, leafy branches gathered, and in a remarkably short time the first structure was raised upon the spot now known as Chaparral and Peoples streets.  In the days that followed Ludwig, known now as Louis, built more solidly.  He burned oyster shell for lime, and with unburned shell and sand built a house that was to survive him.  That was in the fall of 1844.  Kinney had secured title to the land from Captain Villarreal but Taylor had still to conquer the Mexican army before that title was valid.  Louis Dreyer lived as his few neighbors lived.  He acquired cattle and trafficked, we suppose, in hides and tallow.  Money was almost unknown.  A daughter blessed the union, and some years later the first make child was born.  Louis, with memories of his youth before him, wished to name the boy Franz Josef, or Maximilian, in honor of his distinguished forebears.  His wife protested.  All that was behind them, she said.  They were in the wilderness, surrounded by Mexicans and Indians.  They would never see Europe again.  They should give the boy an honest, unassuming name: Tom, Dick or Harry.  Colonel Kinney intervened.  Why not, he suggested, name the infant for himself?  In recognition of the honor he would bestow title to the property on which the house stood upon the boy.  And so the baby was named Henry Louis Dreyer.  At this point it is well to digress for a moment to follow the fate of the chest that contained the documents pertaining to Dreyer's mission in connection with Maximilian.  As has been seen the chest had been embarked on a smuggling vessel bound for Puerto Isabel.  The smuggler had run afoul of the same storm that had driven the other vessel through the pass of the Aransas river.  Less fortunate, though, she had gone down.  Wreckage came ashore at Puerto Isabel.  Among other things was a chest with the name Ludwig Maximilian Dreyer studded with nails in one end.  The Alcalde of Puerto Isabel asked travelers to inquire as to the whereabouts of a man of that name should he still be among the living.  Eventually he learned that the owner of the chest had settled at Kinney's ranch, and Dreyer received his property by the next cart to come overland.  Following the war other settlers had come to Kinneys' ranch and the nucleus of a village had sprung up around the Dreyer house.  After the entrance of Texas to the Union, however, the validity of titles acquired by settlers from Colonel Kinney was attacked.  Levi Jones, who had acquired title from the Republic of Texas, started action in 1849 for possession of the land below the bluff.  He offered to accept $5 a lot from those holding the land as a compromise.  They refused and contended that they had acquired the land honestly from the colonel who claimed the land both on the bluff and below it.  In the years that followed a second son was born and finally, in 1862 a daughter, who was named Annie. 

Five years after the birth of his youngest child, Dreyer was stricken with a fatal malady.  As he lay delirious with fever two ragged, sunburned men arrived at the Dreyer home.  They brought a number of strange coins which were to serve as tokens.  Among others was a Spanish real with a triangular hole cut in its center.  They also brought news of Maximilian's tragic fate.  Finding Dreyer unable to communicate with them they departed.  The sick man's wife pleaded with them to leave their message with her.  She would transmit it to her husband when he was better.   They refused to do this, though.  It was unsafe, they said.  So terrible was the knowledge they had that its very possession endangered human life.  Whether it concerned the vanished treasure of Maximilian, thought to have been lost in the mountains of West Texas, is not known.  History bears us out in this.  Two men, thought at the time to have been Mexicans but later suspected of being Europeans, made their way to the emperor's side just before his execution.  He is thought to have given them a message to deliver to some one.  The nature of the message, or the fate of the two messengers, was never known.  Following the disappearance of the two strangers with the coins, Louis Dreyer died.  As a heritage he left his wife and three children a number of cattle and the property upon which the house stood.  Some five years later little Annie Dreyer had assumed charge of the family's affairs.  At the age of 10 she sold the milk and butter that the Dreyer herd produced and directed the operations of her brothers who handled the cattle.  At the same age she entered upon her first business venture.  A German bootmaker named Brose had once remarked to the child that if her mother would build a suitable house upon the property that he would be willing to pay good rent for it.  At the same time, Annie Dreyer learned that a man who did hauling was about to tear down his stables adjacent to the Dreyer property.  Little Annie Dreyer approached the teamster and asked him to place a price upon the lumber.  The man demurred and suggested that they consult Mrs. Dreyer.  Annie insisted that he do business with her, or not at all.  Finally they agreed upon $25 as the price of the lumber.  The youthful financier then hastened to consult Charles Carroll, a recently arrived builder.  He, too, hesitated to do business with a child, but seeing her determination, inspected the lumber and agreed to build the house for another $25.  The little girl produced the money from a tin can that she had hidden in the roof of the house, and the bookmaker's establishment was built.  Brose occupied the house for 12 years, paying a monthly rental of $6 at first, and $12 dolllars at the last of this occupancy.  Some two years later, in1874, the Supreme Court of the United States found in favor of Levi Jones in the matter of the title to the land.  His emissary, Captain Sam Rankin, called upon the Widow Dreyer. 

The suit had been very costly to Mr. Jones, he announced.  From $5 in 1849, the compromise price had now risen to $300 a lot.  Mrs. Dreyer was dumbfounded and once more her little daughter came to the fore.  How much time, she asked Captain Rankin, would they be allowed in which to make payment?  Could they have a week?  Seeing that the mother sanctioned the little girl's questions the captain informed them that they might have a week.  All that night Annie Dreyer sat on the porch of the little house and wondered where she might raise the almost unheard of sum of $600.  She had some $80 in cash; her mother, she knew, had between $20 and $30.  Morning failed to bring the solution to the problem.  Across the road from the Dreyer home Col. N. Gusset operated a general store and counting house.  A large part of his business was buying the silver ore that came from Mexico by bullock carts.  He also dealt in hides and tallow.  And he was on friendly terms with the little girl who lived across the street.  To Colonel Gusset went Annie Dreyer with her problem.  She had to have $600.  The idea of a child needing $600 seemed preposterous to the good colonel but at last he was convinced.  She must have $600.  But first, he insisted, she must have breakfast.  Afterward he asked her how she could repay her loan.  She told him.  She would work.  The boys would bring in every calf they found with the Dreyer brand on it.  She would sell oceans of milk, and mountains of butter.  Her sincerity persuaded the colonel that was a good risk.  He would loan her the money.  He then explained to her the nature of a promissory note and made one out for her to sign.  Captain Rankin was summoned and paid.  And once more peace descended upon the Dreyer home.  That peace was short lived, however.  Deed to the property was in the name of the oldest brother and soon another controversy arose.  Once again was Annie Dreyer forced to rise in defense of the property that had cost her so dearly.  The plaintiffs in the case retained Corpus Christi's foremost legal firm to press the case.  The little girl was without funds to retain such high-priced legal talent but she approached a lawyer with whom she had had some dealings.  This man had come to Corpus Christi from some place in the north and was a capable barrister.  Like many brilliant men, however, he was much given to drink.  It was his custom to set a whiskey bottle on his desk while he prepared a case.  From time to time he took a drink.  If he chanced to hit upon the happy medium between ability and liquor he usually won his case.  After listening to the young girl's troubles he agreed to defend her rights.  Knowing his weakness little Miss Dreyer appointed herself his assistant while he prepared his arguments and his speech to the jury.  Anxiously she listened to the rehearsal and watched the lowering level of the liquor in the bottle.  At length she decided that oratory had reached the proper pitch and the whisky had reached the right level.  She dispatched her champion to the court house. 

Miss Dreyer's lawyer made the speech that day the like of which had never been heard in the Nueces county court house—and perhaps has not been heard since.  He won the case, but the plaintiff filed notice of an appeal.  The defendant realized that the jury had been influenced to some extent by sentiment, and that that element would not enter into a rehearing of the case.  She compromised for $300, and again thought she had cleared the title to her property.  She was to discover later, however, that the title had been cleared only so long as her mother should live.  And she was to spend still another $600 on the same score, and then, still later, she purchased the interests of the other heirs.  In the late eighties there was no longer any doubt as to title to the property.  All claims against it had been paid at the cost of years of heartache and labor.  A modern two-story business structure was erected upon the property, one of the finest in the city at that time.  It was to endure almost half a century. At the end of that time—early in 1934—it too was torn down to make way for a still more modern building, the one that has just been completed on the spot where the 15-year-old bride sought refuge from the sea; where little Annie Dreyer, now Mrs. Annie Uehlinger Johnson, was born, and struggled against overwhelming odds.  And that, briefly, is the story told by the papers in the copper casket under the corner of the new Montgomery Ward company store.

Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 22 June 1934,

Montgomery Ward Section, page 1 col. 4-5 and page 2 col. 1-3.

Research and transcription: Michael A. Howell