Daxweiler

Prevailing throughout most of the Naturpark Soonwald-Nahe is a suboceanic climate marked by rather mild winters and cool summers (yearly average temperature: 7 to 8 °C) as well as a rather high amount of precipitation, namely between 1 000 and 1 100 mm.

In 1281, a great landhold hitherto held by a knightly order was donated to Otterberg Abbey, who in turn sold it to Electoral Palatinate in 1441.

A 1419 Weistum (cognate with English wisdom, this was a legal pronouncement issued by men learned in law in the Middle Ages and early modern times) describes the dwellers of the municipality of Daxweiler as “serfs of Ingelheim” (whether the town or the comital family of that name was meant is not clear in the source), a term that hardly applied at any time.

After the Thirty Years' War, the lessees forwent any further use of the landhold because they felt themselves in no position to put the estate buildings and the fields, which had been laid waste, back in order.

Peter Assmann sought to secure a longer leasehold and bid one thousand Rhenish guilders more than the Lords Sahler of the Stromberger Neuhütte (ironworks).

In 1773, the Brothers Sahler of the Stromberger Neuhütte sought to secure an hereditary lease on the estate, citing the lack of fodder for their draught animals that would be necessary if the ironworks were to stay in business.

In 1912, the Hüttenwerke Sahler – Wandesleben (the Stromberger Neuhütte), together with the estate’s lands, was facing financial hardship and was thus bought up by Kirsch Puricelli from the Rheinböller Hütte.

Daxweiler's history is also very tightly bound to the Family Puricelli's, for their entrepreneurial endeavours at the Stromberger Neuhütte and the Rheinböller Hütte have supplied the region with jobs for more than 150 years.

Since they were the only bodies that fielded candidates in Daxweiler, the results simply show an uninformative figure of 100% and a seat count of 12.

On 19 May 1907, the Kreuznacher Anzeiger published an article about the restorations then taking place (it is worth pointing out that the church was then only about twelve years old):After new windows from Wilhelm Jansen’s stained-glass workshop in Trier were installed in our church’s quire last autumn, whose whole workmanship was then greatly praised in an article in the Trierische Landeszeitung, the restoration and beautification over the last few weeks have come to completion.

The whole work praises the master, and to the viewer they impart great enjoyment, especially the hue, harmonizing so nicely as it does with the new windows.

The task of giving the altar its required height without hindering the view of the great middle window was best solved by the addition of a retable with turrets.

The carved images on the altar’s retable and the antependium – symbols of the Holy Sacrament – bespeak an extraordinary artist’s hand.

The parishioners’ joy over the new decoration of their otherwise already lovely church can be all the greater, as they have their own readiness to make sacrifices in large part to thank as the means for this beautification.

[13] The Naturpark Soonwald-Nahe reaches from the heights of the Hunsrück over the quartzite combs of the Soonwald with its dales deeply carved by brooks to the vineyard slopes in the sunny and dry valley of the Nahe.

Found in the Soonwald-Nahe Nature Park are such varying habitats as blossom-filled woodland glades, mires, slate mine galleries, juniper heaths, meadow orchard areas, and brooks, riverside flats, dry grasslands and fallow vineyards with luxuriant orchid growth.

Among mammals are the red deer and the wild boar, Mustelidae, fox, badgers and bats as well as the otherwise now rare wildcat.

They are Gasthaus Fennel, Haus am Walde, Zur Brunnenstube, Emmerichshütte, Forsthaus Lauschhütte and Raststätte Hunsrück Westseite.

Salzkopfturm
View from the Salzkopfturm to the south