Noted historian and former professor at Wrocław University, Poland, Karol Jonca (1930-2008), explored the Silesian emigration trends in the mid-1850s: 

“It still cannot be determined whether or to what extent the decision to emigrate to America was influenced by information in the Wrocław press concerning the opportunities to sail from German ports.  It is possible that such information reached only the emigration agents who knew German and could then use it in their emigration promotional literature.  For example, the Wrocław paper Schlesische Zeitung reported that on September 15, 1854, a three-masted ship (of the so-called Bremer class) set sail for Galveston, and that on the 15^th day of every month sailing ships were departing for New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.  Moreover, on September 21 and October 12 and 19, 1854, steamships set sail for New York.

 “The next large group of emigrants set out for Texas on about September 20, 1854, following a major summer flood.  We also know that they went by train from Gliwice to Wrocław, from there to Bremen on September 26, and from there they set sail for the Gulf of Mexico aboard the 265-ton, three-masted “Weser.”  For unknown reasons part of the emigrants sailed on the brig “Antonette” a few days later, and after a long, exhausting voyage reached the port of Galveston on December 3, 1854, but sailed on to the port of Indianola (a port which no longer exists).  The journey continued on foot across inhospitable prairie…” 

Professor Karol Jonca described the Silesians finally reaching “… the town of San Antonio, where the group of 159 person was greeted on December 21, 1854, by Fr. Leopold Moczygemba, who had arrived from Castroville.  If this number of persons reaching the destination is correct, then one must ask what happened to the other Silesian emigrants; the official listing indicated there were 228 of them.  Surviving records provide no answer.  We can only assume that exhausted by the voyage,

 which lasted several weeks, the emigrants did not reach San Antonio but halted along the route, or after landing along the Gulf of Mexico went in other directions.  In any event, those who were greeted by Fr. Leopold Moczygemba set out with him to the southeast to the Cibolo River, where their guide had earlier acquired land, and on December 24, 1854, he celebrated Holy Mass under an oak tree there on the occasion of the Christmas Eve Wigilia.  The new settlement was named Panna Maria.  Part of the newcomers, perhaps disheartened by the difficult conditions—for one thing, the absence of any kind of shelter, which still had to be built—went on to the settlement of Bandera, which had been founded a bit earlier but still was under the threat of Indian attack.”