Like his father before him, he was already a veteran seaman before the Nimitz family immigrated to South Carolina in the early 1840s, and later became part of the Adelsverein colonization experiment in the newly annexed state of Texas.
[1] Nimitz was elected to the Twenty-second Texas Legislature in 1890, representing Gillespie, Comal and Blanco counties, which constituted District 89.
Karl Jr. became fascinated by stories about Texas, and in 1846 joined the Adelsverein colonists who settled in Fredericksburg with John O. Meusebach.
[5] In its heyday, the hotel hosted such guests as Horace Greeley, Johnny Ringo,[6] President Rutherford B. Hayes, James Longstreet, Phil Sheridan, William Sydney Porter and Ulysses S. Grant.
Grandfather Charles Henry Nimitz served as a father figure and role model the first five years of little Chester's life.
While still a teenager, Chester was accepted for enrollment in the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated seventh out of a class of 114.
Chester Nimitz rose to the rank of Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Forces in World War II.
Nimitz later gave an interview about the visit to the Fredericksburg newspaper Das Wochenblatt, detailing Meusebach's horticultural achievements.