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Belgians in the Civil War

Emigrants arrival

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BELGIANS IN AMERICA:    Biographies of Belgian settlers  

joseph vander straten

Joseph Vander Straten, a veteran of Napoleon’s army, left Antwerp in 1846 with four sons and a daughter to join Henri Castro's colony in Texas. Landing at Port Lavaca, they journeyed by oxcart to their land at Castroville. Joseph's wife and one daughter had remained in Belgium until a home was prepared for them. Tragedy occurred when the wife died and was compounded when the two youngest sons died of malaria. Vander Straten decided that the land at Castroville was too barren and conditions too unstable, so he moved to San Antonio, where he found employment as a cook. In 1850 he built a home behind the present Menger Hotel.

Joseph's son Theodore Vander Straten worked as a stonemason. One of his first jobs was to repair the walls of the Alamo in preparation for its occupancy by the United States Army. Later he became a general contractor and built many of the city's early stone buildings, including the Menger Hotel, begun in 1858. During the Civil War Theodore moved his family to Boerne, where he led a detachment of scouts on patrol against marauding Indians. A close friendship developed between the Vander Straten and the Menger family. Joseph lived at the hotel until his death in 1873.