Spend all your time looking for that hidden... what?
Collect mem'ries that brighten all our days
There's always a view waiting, calling from the road
Go out from early morning to the end of the day
I love the distraction, oh beautiful release
Stress seeps from my veins
Caches call the quester, waymarks come fast and thick --
The journey is the true delight.
To the arms of an Angel, tread lightly here;
In the hot, sunny morning, down the lanes you could steer
You might dally in your wan'dring in a silent reverie
For in the arms of an Angel;
May you find some comfort here....
We have come here for caches a couple times ... past time it was waymarked as well.
Cemetery Number: CM-C071
Cemetery Name: St. Joseph's Cemetery
Other Names: Wenzel’s Cemetery, 7 Mile Creek Cemetery, 8 Mile Creek Cemetery
Directions: On FM 482 (old Austin Hwy) about 8 miles from New Braunfels. It was used near the community of Comal, just a short distance from the St. Joseph’s Catholic Chapel located at the top of the hill.
Sources of Information: Comal County Genealogy Society; Parsons, Kim, Ref. to Texas Cemeteries, 1988; Rootsweb; TxDot; USGS; Connie Krause
USGS Quad: 2998-413
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St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery- Comal County, TX
St. Joseph Catholic Church Cemetery is in sight of the Chapel on Hwy. 46 between Bergheim and Hwy. 281, Honey Creek, Comal County, Texas.
223 graves 1986 -- but it's an active cemetery, apparently governed by Sts. Peter and Paul Church in New Braunfels (see metal sign on fence).
What follows is a nice thumbnail history of the Chapel & Congregation at least (source (
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The original St. Joseph Catholic Church in Honey Creek was started in 1876 by a circuit priest, two to three miles north of its present site. The construction of the old rock church along Highway 46 began around 1909. It replaced a wooden church, and was finally completed in late 1912 or early 1913. Although it now serves as a day chapel, this unusual structure is as impressive when viewed from the rear as when viewed from the front. The present day road passes to the rear of the church.
Honey Creek, located in far western Comal County, was settled by Catholic German immigrant families in the 1860s. Five Catholic German families, who had migrated to Texas in the 1840s and 1850s, all had adjacent land surveyed in 1867. The five families were:
G. F. Kunz
Johann Adam Kneupper
Michael Bechtold
H. R. Moos
Casper Moos
The naming of Honey Creek
Honey Creek was named for the large numbers of honeybees near the creek and an abundance of an unusual limestone rock formation locally known as "honeycomb rock." Since their land contained the headwaters of this unnamed creek, members of these five families, especially Kunz and Bechtold, are said to have participated in naming the creek.
The first circuit priest in Honey Creek
Though a shoemaker by trade, George F. Kunz made his first cash income in this new land by hauling cedar charcoal to San Antonio, New Braunfels, and Boerne. He is said to have brought the first circuit priest to Honey Creek. Rev. John Kospiel, a Catholic missionary priest stationed in Boerne, made Honey Creek, or Kunz Settlement, as it came to be called, a permanent stop on his missionary tours.
The log churches
The first church was a log chapel, erected near the Kunz home, which was dedicated on August 20, 1876, when the first Mass there was celebrated there. The church was named St. Joseph's Catholic Church, and it became a parish in 1876. St. Joseph Honey Creek’s original churches were located on Michael Bechtold’s land and its first cemetery is still there. Fire destroyed the first log church when it was less than a year old, and it was replaced in 1877 by a second cedar log church.
The Kneupper Chapel
Nearby on Johann Adam Kneupper’s land a small rock chapel was built from limestone, quarried by hand from nearby hills, and it was completed in 1878. Although this chapel was never recorded as being a church, the original rock chapel still stands as a reminder of those German immigrants who first settled the area.
It is a one room structure situated on a ranch approximately 4.5 miles southeast of Bergheim, Texas, 2 miles north of Highway 46 on Park Road 31. Dedicated in the memory of Rev. John Kospiel in 1878, the building was called the Kneupper Chapel as it stood on land owned by Johann Adam Kneupper at the time it was built. The neighboring families of George Friedrich Kunz and Michael Bechtold with Mr. Kneupper were the primary instigators of its construction.
Once completed, the Kneupper Chapel served as a gathering place for the entire community. It also served as the site for several marriages. Records show that the first exchange of vows took place between Andreas Engel and Eva Bechtold in the presence of Father Henry Gerlach in 1891. Those early settlers were buried in the Old Honey Creek Cemetery or St. Joseph's Catholic Cemetery. The Kneupper Chapel received a Texas historical marker on June 16, 1985.
The Wooden Frame Church
In 1892 St. Joseph Honey Creek was relocated approximately three miles south to its present site, on a one acre plot of land conveyed by Herman Scheel, whose family were parishioners. In June of that year, a larger wooden frame church, St. Joseph's Church, was built and dedicated. In 1898, Fr. Virgilius Draessel, a Franciscan priest arrived as St. Joseph’s first permanent pastor. Fr. Draessel remained pastor until his death at Honey Creek on October 9, 1933. He is buried under the center aisle of the old rock church.
The Rock Church
Around 1909, construction of a rock church began using stone quarried from the adjacent Laubach family land. The Laubachs were parishioners. The rock church was completed in late 1912 or early 1913. When this beautiful church, illustrated above, was completed, the frame church was refurbished as a school. St Anthony’s was the name of the school as recorded by Father Draessel. St. Anthony’s was taught alternately by the Sisters of Divine Providence (1913 – 1933) and then the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament (1933 – 1950) until the school closed in 1950.
The Public School
In 1883 a public school, Honey Creek School, near the original Honey Creek German homesteaders’ land, also served the community until it was consolidated with the Bulverde school district in 1945. The remains of this school’s housing for teachers and the Kneupper Chapel were still visible in 2009.
The New Church Building
In 1990 St. Joseph's Church at Honey Creek remained virtually unchanged and served some 330 families from the surrounding communities and northern Bexar County. The current main Church building was dedicated on August 13, 2006. By the fall of 2009, there were 1700 registered families in the parish.
Compiled from various sources by
Joe Cooper
Bryden E. Moon, Jr.
Kendall County, Texas
September 29, 2009
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REFERENCES
Edmonds, Bettie. Along Country Roads. Austin, Texas: Hart Graphics, 1980.
St. Joseph’s Church – Honey Creek, History, (
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Handbook of Texas Online, Honey Creek, (
visit link)
Kneupper Chapel, (
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Comments and updates provided by Bryden E. Moon, Jr. (September 29, 2009).
The St Josephe Congregation website is (
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And Handbook of Texas OnLine (
visit link) reads:
HONEY CREEK, TEXAS. Honey Creek, in far western Comal County, was settled by Catholic German immigrant families in the late 1840s as a result of the mass migration initiated by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels. George Friedrich and Christina Bechtold Kunz settled at the confluence of a flowing creek and the Guadalupe River. Honey Creek was named for the large numbers of honeybees near the creek and an abundance of an unusual limestone rock formation locally known as "honeycomb rock." Though a shoemaker by trade, George F. Kunz made his first cash income in this new land by hauling cedar charcoal to San Antonio, New Braunfels, and Boerne. Rev. John Kospiel, a Catholic missionary priest stationed in Boerne, made Honey Creek, or Kunz Settlement, as it came to be called, a permanent stop on his missionary tours. A log church was soon erected near the Kunz home; the first Mass there was celebrated on August 20, 1876, and the church was named St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Fire destroyed the log church when it was less than a year old. Johann Adam Kneupper donated land, and a larger rock chapel was built on a hill a half mile southwest. The new chapel, built from limestone quarried by hand from nearby hills, was completed in 1878. The Kneupper Chapel received a Texas historical marker on June 16, 1985. In June 1892 a larger frame church, St. Joseph's Church, was built and dedicated. In 1909 a rock church was built, and the frame church was refurbished as a school taught alternately by the Sisters of Divine Providence and the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament until it was closed in 1949. In 1883 a public school, Honey Creek School, near Kneupper Chapel also served the community until it was consolidated with the Bulverde school district in 1945. The remains of this school and Kneupper Chapel were still visible in 1986. In 1990 St. Joseph's Church at Honey Creek remained virtually unchanged and served some 330 families from the surrounding communities and northern Bexar County.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Archdiocese of San Antonio: Diamond Jubilee, 1874–1949 (San Antonio, 1949). Joyce Gass, The Kneupper Chapel (Honey Creek, Texas: Dietel and Son Printing, 1983). Alexander C. Wangler, ed., Archdiocese of San Antonio, 1874–1974 (San Antonio, 1974).
Joyce M. Gass
SHELLS ON GRAVES === a digression ======
This and many other local cemeteries got me to wondering about the practice of putting shells on graves. The practice is ancient -- going back to our earliest humanity.
(
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www GravestoneStudies dot org
Shells
Clam shells, scallop shells, and other types of shells are a symbol of a person's Christian pilgrimage or journey through life and of baptism in the church. In the middle ages, Christians wore the scallop shell to indicate that they had made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella in Spain. Placing a shell on a gravestone when visiting the site is an ancient custom and may in fact have several different meanings depending on the cultural background of the people placing the shells. The idea of crossing over a body of water to the promised land or crossing the River of Styx to the afterlife, the final journey to the "other side" is also part of the symbolism of the shell.
In the book Texas Graveyards: A Cultural Legacy (
visit link) Terry G. Jordan digs deeper into the human past:
All across the Coastal Plain, from the Carolina Tidewater to Central Texas, shells adorn the burials – seashells, freshwater shells: mussel, clam, cowrie, cockle, and conch shells alike. Inverted clam-type shells, boiled white, often cover entire grave mounds, sometimes single conches rest on or at the base of tombstones; occasionally, a shell border outlines the grave plot or a row traces the ridge of the mound. With remarkable consistency, shells are used as decoration on [over 40% of graves in various parts of Texas]…The practice appears too often and too widely to be explained as mere decoration. Instead, we deal here with a truly ancient custom.
All three major cultural groups that shaped Southern culture traditionally made use of shells in funeral practices...[but for purposes of this clearly German cemetery, I'll skip to the European tradition] Sara Clark, among others, has proposed that the shell decoration custom likely originated in Europe. The practice may be derived from the pre-Christian Mediterranean and possibly dates to Cro-Magnon times thirty thousand years ago. The supreme deity of the ancient Mediterranean was not a temperamental father figure like Zeus or Yaweh, but instead a great mother/love/fertility goddess…. We see her shadow there yet, in the ascendant position of the Virgin Mary in south European Christianity. Indeed, the very name “Mary “ may come from mare, the sea, one of the names given to the goddess Venus who was born of the sea. …Among the duties of the mother goddess was to oversee the dead and, through her supreme powers of fertility, to assure their rebirth into the afterlife. To place a shell on or in a grave was to intercede with the great goddess on behalf of the deceased. “Let them be reborn,” it begged of her, giving tangible expression to the primal desire of the bereaved.
Interesting. And likely contributing. Though the most satisfactory, if not explanatory answer I found is this quote: "Because culture continuously changes, the folk cemetery can be thought of
as an evolutionary landscape phenomenon." - D. Gregory Jeane
The pattern/tradition may continue forward, but its MEANING changes with the local context. I know many modern Christians who might decorate with shells would be appalled at the sugestion they are continuing a pagan prayer. [Even if it might be 'true' -- at least in the essential yearning of the bereaved, that death be a portal, not a terminus.] So which is the 'reason' -- the root or the current flower? I'll leave that to individual discretion.
other reading:
“They’re Pretty, But They’re Work”: Shell-Decorated Graves as Community Art Karen V. Heege (
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