Era of economic and demographic advancement, the 18th century was marked by the organisation and the development of the postal ways of Ancient Regime, with the opening of regular lines.
The mail-coach
It is in the context of postal history that the royal horse postal
service was conceded to landlords, often farmers, generally established
at the side of a main road. These postal relays about fifteen
kilometres apart from each other were held by these postmasters,
responsible for the maintenance of the horses assigned to the
several couriers circulating each week. Not less than thirty five
relays were spread out between Paris and Basle, both towns being
connected in five days. Three were placed on the new royal roadway
connecting Belfort to Huningue, the most significant office of
High Alsace because of the presence of the strong garrison and
from the postal relations with Central Europe which it had.
In the number of these relays appears that of the Three Houses,
commonly called " Posthoernle ". Located on a strong
slope at the culminating point (42
4m)
of the locality of Helfrantzkirch, the postal relay enjoyed a
privileged situation, at the crossing of large postal way above-named
and the pilgrim's road towards Mariastein (diocese of Basle -
canton of Soleure).
" Tres Domos ", 1736:
The construction of the fortified town of Huningue in 1679 had
imposed a direct connection with the other city fortified by Vauban
which is Belfort. The primitive connection Belfort - Delle - Maison
Rouge (Muespach) - 
Huningue was to be abandoned in the second decade of
18th century, probably in 1720, and was replaced by a shorter
route, namely Belfort - Chavanne - Altkirch - Three Houses - Huningue.
Note that the first mention of Tops of the Sierentz County
appears in 1736, in the register of the baptisms of the parish
Saint Bartholomew in these terms: " Magister Postarum et
Cauponista AD Tres Domos " (Post Master and landlord at the
Three Houses).
The latter is in fact Joseph Gschwind, first known postmaster
of the Three Houses, composed of three buildings, indicated in
other respects on the map of the great geographers of the Age
of Enlightenment, the Cassini brothers.
The dynasty of Gschwind
From the union of Joseph Gschwind and Marie-Anne Reinhard seven
children were born. Two may be pointed out: Joseph Gschwind (born
on June 20, 1738) became priest in Helfrantzkirch during the Revolution.
Voluntarily deported in 1792, he became "prémissaire"
in Bartenheim under the Concordat before dying in 1815.
The junior, Jean Bart, took succession from his father. Indeed,
if the postmasters were royal officials ensuring the transport
of mail and travellers, their loads were very quickly transmitted
by family succession. The distance between relays was called poste,
unit of tariffing.
The
Belfort-Basle course counted 8 postes and a half, of which Altkirch-Three
Houses counted 2, and Three-Houses-Huningue one and a half. So
that the Postmaster of the Altkirch station expressly asked in
1773 that the course between Altkirch and the Three Houses "
be counted as two postes and a half in order to take account of
the slopes". Some two years later, there is a record of the
annual purchase of not less than 200 oat bags, by the sior Gschwind,
then tenant of the Three Houses.
A beautiful masonry in 1786
From the same time (1786) dates most likely the construction of
the gentleman's residence; it is still currently visible, but
in those days it was surrounded by imposing dependencies.
With its sixteen rooms, it keeps trace of not so remote time
s when the ground
floor mainly consisted in the restaurant and the waiting room.
Half an hour before each departure, one could hear the sound of
the horn in the peaceful surrounding countryside. Unfortunately
no longer visible is the metal wind vane, fixed on the post house,
it was torn off during a night storm in 1911.
Opposite the masonry and since the end of the Thirty Year War
(1618-1648) was a family chapel, capped by a pinnacle and dedicated
to the 14 intercessor saints according to André Munck.
A chaplain was attached to this small place of rural worship.
Mulhouse become French in 1798 and was thus going to attract the
large mail, Huningue and consequently the Three-Houses losing
their main postal role.
Jean-Beatus Gschwind left this world on June 17, 1804; a cross
with his initials, and those of his wife Marie-Thérèse
Brodhag, was destroyed in 1945. Later one of his domestic servants
became owner. Thus, sold as national good at the Revolution, the
farm of Windenhof (Willer) was sold again by Solomon Katz, a Jew
from Cernay, on August 16, 1809 to Jean-Jacques Jäcker, of
Mimliswil (canton of Soleure), employed as servant at the horse
relay station of Three Houses.
The son and successor of Jean Beat Gschwind, François-Joseph,
married on February 17, 1814 in the same chapel which saw his
own baptism, saw his union enriched by ten children!
One
of the houses destroyed by fire
The invasion of France inducted the decline
of the Napoleonic Empire. An oral tradition reports that the Three
Houses were the supposed meeting place of three victorious sovereigns
of the emperor, the one of Austria and king of Hungary Francis
1st, the one of all Russias, Alexander 1st, and finally the Prussian
monarch Frederik-Wilhelm. It seems that they actually met, but
in Basle at the beginning January 1814.
June 27, 1815, one of the three buildings was destroyed by fire.
There were fights between the allied and French troops coming
from besieged Huningue. Once again, Tsar Alexander 1st passed
at the Three-Houses in September 1815.
The land recovery (1824) shows us the large house surrounded by
stables and barn for fodder, in a drawing by engineer Jaegle.
Henner at the Three Houses
Under the Monarchy of July the great sundgauvian painter Jean-Jacques
Henner (1829-1905) stayed at the Three Houses for a few days in
order to paint the portraits of his hosts.
But this monarchy of the king-citizen also proves to be the time
of the revolution of transport, highlight of road communications,
and of the emergence of the railway. Gradually, the horse post
office disappeared with the extension of the railway network.
It was only just the secular reign of the coaches when that of
the vapour started. During 1856, the railroad mail service replaced
the mail-coach definitively, with the opening of the rail link
Mulhouse-Dannemarie two years later.
The decline of the relay
Ignace Gschwind, a freemason of about 30, who was extremely indebted
and who was the postmaster at that time, sold in October 1854,
the small bell (50 kg) of the chapel to the municipality of Helfrantzkirch
for the sum of 505 F. The municipality was to place it in a new
pinnacle for the school-town hall.
Owned one century and a half by the Gschwind,
the Three Houses were sold thereafter to Charles Laroche from
Basle, which yielded the field to the family of the current owners,
the Helterlins.
Native of Heimersdorf where he was born on June 12, 1808, François-Joseph
Helterlin got back to his native Sundgau after a 14 year stay
in America. He acquired the principal masonry and the attached
8 hectares attached to it for the tidy amount of 12.000 F. The
property became a farm. The owner died in 1867.
At the left of the old post office, the second farm was acquired
by Auguste Specker, dismounted and transported with any part in
the close locality of Stetten, where it is always visible. Bicentenary,
the chapel was to be destroyed, at the same time.
The current locality saw the construction, between the two wars,
of the forts of the Maginot line on the banks called Aupara Jukerten.
Finally to be complete, note that since about 20 years, the model
of the postal relay of the Three-Houses, created by Mr. Buret,
is exposed at the Museum of the History of the Postal and Telecommunications
Authorities of Alsace in Riquewihr, which shelters the beautiful
collections of the Friends of the History of the regional post.
Paul-Bernard MUNCH
visit the site of the Friends of the History
of the regional post:
La Société d'Histoire
de La Poste et de France Télécom en Alsace (S.H.P.T.A.)
Notes & Bibliography
Notes d'Histoire sur Helfrantzkirch - DNA 3
janvier 1987
Paul Leuilliot - L'Alsace au début du XIXe siècle,
tome 2, page 215
Helfrantzkirch