An aerial view of the Herff Farm in 1935. Courtesy photo

By Linda Byrne
Editor

The healing hand of pioneer surgeon Dr. Ferdinand Herff did far more than restore people to health. It led to a productive and prosperous life that extended to his family members, made its presence felt in Boerne as 10,000 acres of land moved into Herff hands and exists today as part of the Cibolo Nature Center, where great-great granddaughter Carolyn Chipman Evans oversees a partnership between man and nature worthy of her ancestor’s legacy.

Dr. Herff arrived in the Boerne area from Germany in 1849, four years after Texas became a state. Originally he settled with other Germans striving to form an ideal society at Bettina, but some settlers had no practical skills and that settlement failed.

Master developer John James arrived in 1851 and platted the city that today is Boerne. According to a Herff family history, the greatest ambition of a German settler was to become a landowner and Dr. Herff was no exception. So the acreage deeded to him on Nov. 18, 1852—300 acres next to a creek—must have resulted in a joyous celebration at the Herff home.

Family accounts reveal that the surgeon’s fame and fortune rested on a three-legged stool of surgical skill, a facility for languages and a kind heart. These three components of his personality led to his mastery of the Apache and Comanche tribal languages and ultimately to perform a cataract operation on a Comanche brave that restored the American Indian’s sight.

The exterior of the pioneer home, built in the mid-1800s, at the Herff Farm. It was renovated by various owners over the years and now is the property of Friends of the Cibolo Wilderness. Photos by Linda Byrne

According to a family member’s account in “The Doctors Herff,” the family had visited Cibolo Falls “on that ill-fated afternoon and made the terrifying discovery that there was an Indian encampment on the West Bank of the canyon.”

The family rushed home and barricaded themselves inside (the house) and “began an armed vigil.”

The next morning, although seven people had been killed and a justice-seeking posse rode across the land, the Herff family dwelling and its inhabitants had been spared. An arrow impaled on the garden gate, attached to a white feather, sent a nonverbal message that the Indians revered the kind doctor.

Family records show that Dr. Herff accumulated much of his land through a bartering system in which grateful settlers paid for medical services with land. According to “The Doctors Herff,” a tonsillectomy, circumcision or delivery of a newborn brought in a payment of 10 acres.

Today the precious tract at the confluence of Menger and Cibolo creeks, where Dr. Herff once camped while looking for his country heaven, has dwindled to less than 100 acres. Indirectly, it is under the stewardship of the Herff family once again for the first time since the 1930s. The Friends of the Cibolo Wilderness bought the property last July to augment the Cibolo Nature Center, under the leadership of Chipman Evans.

Carolyn Chipman Evans stands next to an upstairs window in one of the bedrooms at the historic home on the Herff Farm.

A large barn, an outdoor kitchen, and a charming outbuilding with a screened basement are close to the house. The latter has been determined to be a winter aviary for one of the Herff in-laws whose hobby was birds.

Chipman Evans said her ancestors were role models in the way to live a productive, beautiful life that influences her even today.

“I am inspired by the idealism of the young Germans who came to America to start a better world. They believed that they could create such a place of peace and equality. They worked hard to create a culture of beauty,” Chipman Evans said.

“I do believe Ferdinand’s belief that all people should be treated equally, with care and respect, has persisted in all (Herff) generations. In addition he always worked to make the world a better place, a value which also seems to have trickled down through the generations,” Chipman Evans said.

Next Week: The Civil War, a change in ownership and future plans