Moritz & Marie Beier Buy a Farm at Beyersville

First home on the Beyersville farm

Working in the cotton gin and renting at Noack, Texas, during most of the decade beginning in 1890, Moritz Beier saved enough money to buy a place that he and Marie could call their own.  Williamson County records show that Moritz purchased a 75 acre farm in the Robbins Pasture survey at Beyersville, on October 1, 1901.  This was the first of several purchases Moritz Beier made over a period of several years.  [Note: Robbins Pasture is occasionally refered to in this blog as "Robinsons Pasture"]

Ella Beyer Hardi wrote:

After a time of working in the gin, grandfather Moritz, being a very saving person, could buy acreage, near Beyersville, and eventually near Coupland.  He paid $35.00 an acre for the first farm. 


Moving to Robinson Pasture the small farm my Parents bought . . . $27 acre.  The Tax were still due from years before.   My Dad borrowed the money from Mathias Bachmeyer to pay for same.  They had the money (Cash).  Just newly married they lived close to us.  Mathias Wife Alma was my Cousin. 

Lucille Harwell notes (from a conversation with Rudolph Ernest Beyer):

Parents moved to Beyersville 1901, bought 75 acres . . .  for about $35 an acre.  [The previous owner had] failed to pay taxes on land for 2 years.  One day Charlie Strau, property tax agent, approached Moritz in town and told him he would foreclose on him if he didn’t pay back taxes which amounted to a little more than $200.  Moritz was in trouble because he was never notified of this back tax.  He immediately came home and then went to Mathias Bachmayer and told him of his troubles.  He went to his old trunk and took out $200.00 and handed it to Moritz so he could pay his debt.

From Ella Hardi's notes:

After buying his first acreage, grandfather, after crops came in, bought additional land, cotton prices were good during World War I. 

. . . .

After the small farm was paid Papa bought raw land next to the little farm just Cactus & Mesquite brush. Had Mexicans to dig up mesquite stumps & Cactus.  We Children & Mother burned brush & hauled Prickle Pear.  Meanwhile Ewald was born [Ewald Otto Beyer - born February 23, 1903].  It was nothing but hard work.  Paid $35 for the raw land.  Barely enough to eat.  Olga had to learn to plow, handle 4 mules, flat bed.  Make new land. Plow handle 4 mules in front a Sulkey Plow. Always tried to make more money. Paid Mexicans to cut big trees across dry brushy make cord-wood.  Olga & I stacked hauled 60 cords in one winter.  Mr. Bachmeyer bought to run his Cotton Gin at Beyersville.  Mr Bachmeyer's first Gin was down on his farm but later moved it Close to Tonigs Gin called Beyersville.

. . . .

                                                                                         Having paid the [farm] my Dad bought raw land (Pasture) for $35. an acre.  Mexicans Grubbed & cut down trees.  We hauled Prickle Pears into ditches.  It was hard work to lift the green Prickle Pears on the wagon (they were full of stickers) and the green Cord wood to load on the wagon & haul off to stack into cords (6 ft long & 4 ft high measured 1 cord.)  Mama helped burn brush.

                                                                                       When Ewald was about 2 years old he tried to climb a small Elm tree.  But all to Laugh.  He landed on the ground in a water puddle, to our surprise here came Mr. Mager to see what we were doing and with Ewald all wet & just covered with a heavy Jacket to let his clothes dry, hung on a bush close by. 

                                                                                        We all had to burn brush, mesquite, & chaparral.  The mesquite stumps in the ground the Mexicans had to dig up.  The Mexicans got $15 an acre for Grubbing.  My Sister Olga did the flat breaking (Plowing) with 4 mules hitched to a Sulky Plow – 30 acres one winter & 30 the next so we had new land for crops.  One year top crop was very heavy almost as good as the fall (summer) crop.

Moritz Beier subsequently purchased and improved additional farmland nearby in 1908 (150 acres) and 1920 (158 acres).

Driving through southeast Williamson County to visit family, it's hard to imagine what this area might have been like before paved roads, cultivated fields and cleared pastures.  In 1901, land that had not yet been cleared, covered with Mesquite and prickly pear cactus, was rather common, I'm sure.  Moritz and Marie Beyer, and other families like theirs worked hard to turn the land into productive farms.

Grace and peace,

Kevin

P.S.  Some additional notes about the Beier family from 1900 to about 1910 -

In 1974, Rudolph Beyer also wrote:

When I was 5 ½ years old my Parents bought a small Farm near Mager school.  Which is some 2 ½ mi. south of Beyersville.  We kids attended Mager School.  My first teacher had about 60 children to take care of when weather & roads permitted Children to attend.  In those days we had to hurry home walking and help parents milk cows, feed all the livestock, carry wood into house and then study our books by Oil Lamp. 

In other notes Ella Hardi also wrote:. . .

I started school, learned to speak English, learned 1^st reading. Walk rain or shine. 

Marie Hardi Gillett wrote:

I asked mother [Ella Hardi] if she remembers any, about changing the name from Beier, to Beyer.  She said “Yes, Papa went to Georgetown (Texas) and they assured him, that Beyer would be pronounced the same as Beier.”  As she would have been old enough to remember this, we might assume that this happened after 1900 – or perhaps, when their first land was bought.  Have no dates for this.  Did all the Beyers Change their name at the same time, is unknown.

I wonder how people in their community were pronouncing "Beier."  --KRH