Bettina, Texas

The colony had its beginnings in 1846 in Darmstadt, Giessen, and Heidelberg, where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels delivered speeches on behalf of the Adelsverein, promoting Texas as a utopian frontier for university graduates.

The Darmstadt Forty was a freethinker organization founded by Hermann Spiess,[2] Ferdinand Ludwig Herff,[3] and Gustav Schleicher,[4] and based on ideals of Étienne Cabet and Charles Fourier.

The Darmstadt Forty group set sail with dogs, goods, supplies, and an array of musical instruments aboard the St. Pauli from Hamburg in April 1847, arriving in Galveston on July 17.

From Galveston they sailed to Indianola, where Adelsverein Commissioner-General John O. Meusebach had arranged for numerous wagons to haul the group and its freight inland.

During the four weeks it took them to travel to New Braunfels, the trek took on the ambiance of a collegiate party, with beer and singing and youthful high spiritedness filling the journey.