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Located on the high bluff on the west side of the Medina River, seven miles north of Castroville, the Haby Settlement was established in the 1840s. Francois Joseph II and Marie Anne Haby, Jean Jacque and Marthe Haby, and Catherine (Haby) and Michel Gsell and their families immigrated to Texas from Oberentzen, Alsace, France. Other Haby family members followed as well as the family of George Joseph Beck, also from Alsace, France. The two families purchased land together to farm and develop. The eldest sons of Francois Joseph II, Joe and Nicolas, were among the twenty-seven colonist men who founded Castroville on September 3, 1844, and served Castro as paid hunters to bring in venison. Known as the “fighting Habys,” the family protected the settlement against the dangers of the frontier with several Haby men joining the Texas Rangers. The Habys quickly realized the importance of water and took advantage of an ingenious system of gravity-fed ditch irrigation allowed them by the perennial artesian springs, named Die Quelle by the family, which are flowing to this day. Most of the Haby homesteads also included a rock-lined well into the shallow river gravel or a cistern to capture rain water off the roof of the home. The Catholic School in Haby Settlement was operated by the Sisters of Divine Providence from Castroville from 1874 to 1895 and was housed in the first home of Andrew Haby. Today, the Haby Settlement reveals around ten quaint stone Alsatian homes with many farms and ranches in the area still owned and operated by Haby descendants. |
