Hood County Texas Genealogical Society
LEOPOLD STAVENHAGEN
1833
- 1911
Leopold Stavenhagen was born September 3, 1833, the son of
a wealthy family in Hamburg, Germany. He ran away from his school and came to
the United States as a stowaway on a sailing vessel landing in Galveston,
Texas. They were 40 days in the crossing. He was disinherited. This occurred in
approximately 1850. He had five brothers and one sister. Three brothers came to
the United States years after he came. His descendents know very little about
the next years of his life. It is believed his mother died sometime during
these first years here and that he went home at the time, but was soon back in
Texas.
As related by an old friend in 1932, Leopold was in the South Central New
Mexico Territory when he was about 30 years old, prospecting for gold in the
Sacramento Mountains. He built the first chimney ever to draw smoke in the
Sacramentos. In this venture he almost lost his life, his partner had gone to
El Paso for supplies; Leopold was alone when a band of Indians came in, took
all of his water and left him tied to a tree and he was in a bad way. His
tongue was swollen from his mouth when he was found by a priest and a group of
mission Indians. They took him along and saved his life. He was never able to
learn what happened to his partner. Leopold made a claim with the U.S.
Government in March 1891 for loses sustained by the Tonkawa and Apache Indians
in Arizona Territory in April, 1862 and Comanche Indians in Hood County, in
February, 1865 in the sum of $1,200.00 (2 horses, 1 mare, 2 jacks and jenneys,
23 pack saddles, 1 saddle and 2 horses).
During the Civil War, Leopold was a teamster on a freight wagon hauling
supplies for the Confederate troops. (Roma Stavenhagen Walling, Leopolds
granddaughter, had no information on when Leopold came to the Granbury area.)
It is the family story that Leopold met his wife when she was nine years old
and would visit his store. He waited until she was old enough to marry.
After marrying Sarah Elizabeth Yates, they lived in Granbury in March 1875,
where Leopold ran a restaurant, bakery and confectionary store. By February
1877 they had moved to the western part of Hood County, Texas. There Leopold
built and operated a store in the area. The store and cotton gin were located
some 1½ miles northeast of the present day Lipan, Hood County, Texas. In
February 1877, they lived with Sarah's family on their farm.
Leopold served as Justice of the Peace of Precinct 2 in
1880. Then he became Postmaster at
Lipan on August 21, 1883.
According to Roma, little is known of the next ten years or so he was a
storekeeper. During the money panic he continued to sell on credit until he was
hurt badly financially. She thinks they were in Hood County, Texas until 1888
when they moved to Gordon, Palo Pinto County, Texas but were back in Hood
County by September 1890. He owned a house in Lipan and bought a farm five
miles west of Lipan, Double Mountain Community (his wife always wanted a farm).
The land laid part in Erath and part in Palo Pinto County. The house was in
Erath, taxes paid in Erath, but most of the farmland was in Palo Pinto. They
used to say they lived in Erath, farmed in Palo Pinto and got their mail in
Hood Co. (Rural Rte from Lipan). They moved to the farm about 1891.
Leopold returned to Germany in 1876 upon his father's death, and Sarah stayed
with her family.
They stayed on the farm, but Leopold was not a farmer. He was an insurance
agent. He rode around in a buggy driving his mule, "Old Beck." He was
an educated man, able to read, write and speak seven languages. He was not a
large man, had red hair. Roma writes that he was a good and gentle man.
Leopold died June 26, 1911 in Lipan. He was buried in Baptist Cemetery, two miles
southeast of Lipan.
Father: Jacob Moses Stavenhagen born January 3, 1798 in
Alt-Strelitz, Germany
Mother: Sara Ernst born June 18, 1806 in
Hamburg, Germany
Marriage: Sarah Elizabeth Yeats / Yates born June 2,
1855 in Tennessee; married January 29, 1874 in Granbury, Hood County, Texas
CHILDREN
Jacob Edward Stavenhagen born March 26,
1875 in Granbury, Hood County, Texas
Austin Newton Stavenhagen born February 27,
1877 in Lipan, Hood County, Texas
Frances May Stavenhagen born June 27, 1879
in Lipan, Hood County, Texas
Maggie Jane Stavenhagen born October 3,
1881 in Lipan, Hood County, Texas
Mary Agnes Stavenhagen born December 4,
1883 in Lipan, Hood County, Texas
Nannie Bell Stavenhagen born December 3,
1885 in Lipan, Hood County, Texas
Cora Lee Stavenhagen born March 29, 1888 in
Gordon, Palo Pinto County, Texas
Joseph Ernest Stavenhagen born September
29, 1890 in Lipan, Hood County, Texas
Alice Lenora Stavenhagen born January 30,
1898 in Erath County, Texas
John McFall Stavenhagen born August 5, 1901
in Erath County, Texas
~ Web Page by Virginia Hale
~
2001 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY