HomeMy WebLinkAboutZeno Philips - Marshall Pease - Homer Rea House 0
ZENO PHILIPS - MARSHALL PEASE - HOMER REA HOUSE
by
® JOY REA
810 EAST 30TH STREET
BRYAN, TEXAS 77803
(NO TELEPHONE)
MARCH 23, 1992
110
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ZENO PHILIPS - MARSHALL PEASE - HOMER REA HOUSE
by
JOY REA
810 EAST 30TH STREET
BRYAN, TEXAS 77803
(NO TELEPHONE)
MARCH 23, 1992
Records indicate that in 1826 Zeno Philips built and lived in
the house now known as 810 East 30th Street. Zeno Philips wrote to
Leona Vicario, Governor of Coahuila and Texas on December 31, 1830:
I, Zeno Philips. . .one of the Colonists lawfully
established in the First Colony of the Empresario
Austin...would represent that I received in said Colony as
settler, one league of land; that my family is very large,
being composed of more than twenty persons, that I need land
to increase my breeding of stock, having quite sufficient
means for that purpose, and whereas I have built in the
(pr Colony and operating cotton gin, besides other improvements,
I...pray that you...grant me one league of land in class of
argumentation, with the understanding that...I offer to
cultivate and settle it as the law directs, to effect all
payment therein prescribed, and to comply with "all
obligations thereof, as well as those of the other laws of
the land.(1)
This letter was written from "Town of Austin ", as was the
letter of Stephen F. Austin three days later, December 4, 1830:
In regard to the settle of the applicant in the foregoing
petition: I have to say, that his statements are true;
besides, he is a gentleman of very good moral, civil, and
political qualifications, honorable and respectable, and has
quite sufficient means for cultivating the tract of land for
which he is applying.(2)
Governor Leona Vicario received these letters in Coahuila two
months afterwards, and on February 11, 1831, he replied:
I grant to the petitioner the league of land which he claims,
in the locality which he designates...The commissioner for the
distribution of lands in the Colony to which the tract claimed
by the petitioner may belong...will put him in possession of
said league of land and issue the respective title, after
having assessed the quality thereof, for establishing the
amount to be paid by him to the State, for which payments I
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allow him the installments specified in Art. 22nd of said
law.(3)
A year later in "Town of Austin ", Zeno Philips applied for the
title to Miguel Arciniega in town of San Felipe de Austin, February
16, 1832:
...the Supreme Government of this State was pleased to grant
me, in class of argumentation, one league of land which
bears date February 11, 1831...you may be pleased to give me
possession of one league of land, which is situated East of
the Brazos River and North of the Navasota Creek, adjoining
and southwest of the John Austin league, being on the plan
No. 7. With the understanding that I offer to settle and
cultivate it.(4)
A week later, February 24, 1832, in town of San Felipe de
Austin, Miguel Arciniega replied:
...I grant and confirm upon the said Zeno Philips, and put
(ove him in real and personal possession of one league of land,
which tract has been surveyed by Horatio Chriesman,
previously appointed...This tract belongs to the class of
arable lands in 2/25 part and to that of particular
(pasture) lands in 23/25 part, which serves as a
clarification for the price to be paid by him to the state.
Within one year he must build permanent monuments in every
angle of the tract, and must settle and cultivate it.(5)
The requirement to settle and cultivate within one year was a
matter of form, because Zeno Philips had already done this in 1826
to fulfill the requirement that "colonists must reside on the soil
six years" to get title, which title Zeno Philips got in 1832.(6)
On December 1, 1830, Zeno Philips testified that he had already
built on the league and had a cotton gin and other improvements.(7)
The Handbook of Texas says that Zeno Philips was assigned his
league on July 19, 1824, and that the March 1826 census listed him
as a "farmer and stock raiser, a single man between twenty -five and
forty, with one servant and twenty -two slaves. "(8) The average
number of slaves was five or less.(9) In March, 1829, "Philips and
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John R. Harris were partners in one the of first large contracts
for cotton in Texas, when they bought about a hundred bales from
Jared E. Groce. "(10)
Zeno Philips died in 1837, and at a special term of the County
Court of Brazoria County, October 2, 1837, William O. Hill
petitioned to be Administrator of the Philips estate (11), and on
November 28, 1837 Hill and Columbus R. Patton signed a bond for
$51,000 for Hill to make an inventory of the estate.(12) I
conclude that the estate which required a $51,000 bond included a
house that Philips "had built in the colony" and that during the
twelve years it took to make the inventory, the house went into
disrepair.
The cost of administering the Philips estate was such that the
balance due Hill was $8,000.(13) The Philips League had to be sold
at auction at the courthouse door in the town of Brazoria on the
1st Tuesday of July, 1849.(14) E. M. Pease made the highest bid at
#3,500.(15)
Why was E. M. Pease the one who made the highest bid for the �L
Philips League in 1849? In 1848 he originated the probate laws in
the First and Second Legislatures.(16) The probate laws must have
brought an end to the long Philips probate. Pease may have bid on
the League on an act of friendship and admiration for Zeno Philips./ )
In 1857, as Governor, Pease appointed an Austin doctor, Dr. William
Philips, his Secretary of State (17), and one may conclude that
Pease was friends with men who spelled Philips with a single 1. In
1849, Pease had a distant cousin, Lucadia Niles in Connecticut, who
was waiting for him.(18) He could have bought a home in Austin for
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his bride- to -be. In 1845 he was issuing homestead patents for
homes in Austin.(19) But he waited until a year after he bought
the Philips League to marry Lucadia and bring her to Brazoria.(20)
I conclude that he brought her to the Philips League, that the
house on it was not in disrepair and that the Philips League was
either in the Brazoria District (Western District)(21) and /or
adjoined a town named Brazoria, but later named Bryan to avoid
confusion with the town of Brazoria at the mouth of the Brazos
River. Such a change in names happened with the two towns named
San Felipe. To avoid confusion with San Felipe de Austin on the
Brazos, San Felipe on the Rio Grande changed its name to Del �∎'
Rio.(22) I conclude that the house Pease brought his bride to was
not in disrepair because in 1849 Pease's builder /friend Abner Hugh I
Cook was making trips from Bastrop to Huntsville to build the
1 /
Penitentiary.(23) It would not have been out of Cook's way for him
to repair the Philips -Pease House. It may have been at this time
that the house got its Greek Revival front door, characteristic of
Cook.
Women describe houses. Lucadia Pease and her visiting sister,
Juliet Niles, described the Pease house in letters home to
Connecticut, and the return address on their letters was
Brazoria.(24) E. M. Pease would have chosen the Brazoria that
adjoined the Philips League for several reasons. When Pease came
at 23 to Texas on January 3, 1835, he lived in Mina (Bastrop),
II: where as a member of the Mina Committee, he "knew first hand the
evolution of the government of Texas completely. .(25) I conclude
that he went down the OSR, at that time called the Mina Road.(26)
i.... 2
..,
•
S
, The present marking of the OSR 8 miles north of Bryan disagrees/
V
with the 1837 map showing the OSR going through Bryan.(27)- I
1 1
conclude that when E. M. Pease went down the Mina Road, he saw the
] house on the Philips League and liked it. Zeno Philips was still
alive and prominent in 1835.(28) That the Philips -Pease Brazoria
was not shown on maps does not mean it was not there. The
anonymous 1831 visitor to Texas said that the maps did not show
things right: "The road (OSR) laid down on maps as a road is
however a mere route, marked out by notched or blazed trees. "(29)
"The OSR, ordered by the King of Spain in 1691, was the most famous
Texas road and was used for many years. By 1911, it was realized
that the famous trail would disappear, and the DAR began to try to
4 110 make markers for the road.(30) Stephen F. Austin knew the
commercial value of this famous road, and when he and his friends
got first choice on the 7- square mile leagues granted by Mexico, he
took 9 and 10, through which I conclude the famous trail ran, which
on the 1885 city maps of Bryan seem to me to follow Madisonville
Road over to Washington Street turning right on Burleson Street
(now 27th) (31). Zeno Philips chose league 7.
t
*p 7
* Where I conclude OSR to have been. (32)
4::' * *Where I conclude Philips built.
A house on the King's Highway, the OSR, was reason enough for
Pease to buy it for his bride, from which she wrote letters with
a
the return address Brazoria.
This Brazoria house had 7- square miles with it. If the house
had been in Brazoria on the coast, it would have been on a 1/8 acre 4
lot . (33) But it would have been a big house on a 1/8 acre lot;
Q
whereas, the Pease house was too small.(34) Had the house been on 4
the coast, the Gulf Breeze would have made it dry by convection, kl .
but on the Philips -Pease League it was damp - damp enough to cause /
a family illness that made Pease resign from his 1851 nomination }"�/
for Governor . (35) Damp enough to make them plan to build a new ��
house of oiled bricks to prevent dampness.(36) Brazoria on the V
coast had shops with a great variety of articles for sale in ]�
1831.(37) But the Brazoria on the King's Highway of the 1850's was c t
a town of quiet life (38), quiet life that continued in Bryan
1,5
through the 1950's. As Ernest Langford, long -time head of A & M's re _)
Architecture Department used to say, "That's the way we want `) t
it. "(39) 4 is
In 1831 the houses in Brazoria on the coast were made of logs
vi
(40), the 50 houses in San Felipe were "all built of logs, except
one, which is framed and very comfortable, "(41) but the Philips
house as later described by the Pease women was a small frame
house.(42) In 1831 the "route from Brazoria (on the coast) to San
Felipe usually occupied nearly 3 days, "(43) but from Brazoria on
the King's Highway to San Felipe took only one day. When Stephen
F. Austin made a speech in that Brazoria, he rode home in time to
eat supper in San Felipe.(44) His speech must have been at the
41 , mercantile store of his brother James Austin and distant relative
John Austin, who were using Stephen's money.(45) After 1839, it
took even less time to get from that Brazoria to the capital at
Austin and later at Washington -on- the - Brazos. Which Brazoria to
live in was a question that paralleled the quarrel between Sam
Houston, who wanted the Capital at Houston, and his opponents, such
as Pease, who wanted the Capital in the Western District.(46) The
hatred for Houston was especially great at Caldwell on OSR.(47)
The roads of the Philips -Pease Brazoria were muddy (48); where the
roads of coastal Brazoria were hard: i d9i_ wh ��
T-(z r iN 624-- f
The only really good avenue of transportation lay along the C lti
beaches of the Gulf. Mrs. Holley travelled along a section
and described it as "nearly 30 miles long and as hard and
smooth as a floor." But the beach never was a great highway
of commerce. The flow of traffic was into the interior
(OSR) and not along the coast.(49)
Muddy roads are one thing that Juliet Niles complained of
about the Brazoria Pease house: "I might get stuck in the mud and
I ,
take root and grow in this boasted productive soil. "(50) The soil
that she complained was not as productive as boasted to be, locates
the Brazoria Pease house in Brazos County. Brazos and neighboring
counties have always had the reputation of having productive soil,
and this is one reason for the location of Texas A & M University
here. Although it did not turn out to be true, early settlers in
1839 thought that since weeds grew 15 feet tall, the soil was i 4,
productive and other plants would also grow to be 15 feet tall: %, J
In their wee or weed prairies, the counties of Robertson and
Milam possess a characteristic of the soil peculiar to t
themselves. These prairies, unlike most in other I )
localities, are covered with a thick growth of weeds instead
of grass. The weeds are from 10 to 15 feet high, almost 6
unDenetrable to man or horse, resembling in some respects 1 10
the cane -brake of the alluvial region The settlers highly
estimate the productive power of the weed prairies.(51)
The tall weed prairies were like islands in thick forests and
were "called islands by the people of the county. "(52) The forests
were so thick that Herman Ehrenberg in 1835 said that the forest
were destroyed to make Washington -on- the Brazos.(53)
The 1831 sketch of thick woods at Brazoria, so tall that the
man on horse is miniature, could picture either Brazoria. The 1831
sketch of thick woods by the author of & Visit To Texas 1831 is
reproduced in Del Weniger's The Explorers Texas as a "canebrake
forest ".(54) Cane was thick in the alluvial Brazoria, but also
thick in Brazos County. Today scattered around Bryan are stands of
canebrake, but there were more standing in the 1940's and 1950's.
Cane surrounded the big Cavitt House, and the only time that the
Cavitt sisters got off their horses to talk to Homer Rea, Sr. was
when they asked him how to weed - control their cane. But a dense
forest with tall unpenetrable weeds was more characteristic of
Brazos and Washington Counties than of alluvial Brazos. In 1845
Brazos County was described as wooded.(55) In 1836 Colonel W. F.
Gray wrote of Washington -on -the Brazos:
Glad to get out of so disgusting a place. It is laid out in
the woods...only one street, which consists of an opening
cut out of the woods. The stumps still standing. A rare
place to hold a national convention in. They will leave it
promptly to avoid starvation.(56)
Disgusting is how Lucadia Pease's sister Juliet found Brazoria
(Bryan) in 1853. Disgusting made Carrie Bel Rea say, "Why did they
put A & M College here ?" A 1992 visitor to Bryan said that "the
best thing about Bryan is leaving it! ". The artist who made the
1831 sketch wrote:
II; Mr. John Austin, the first settler of Brazoria, went there in
1828. The place for the village which had been since cleared
of the forest trees which then overspread the county, and, at
the time of my visit they had been cut away to about the
distance of half a mile.(57) m
The 1831 author did not visit John Austin, but rather the cheat -
William Austin, both of whom were only distant cousins of Stephen
-
F. Austin. The league of John Austin was No. 8, adjoining the
league of Zeno Philips. (58) yl��J
Since I conclude that the Brazoria Pease house was the Zeno `� r
Philips house, and since the Pease house was a small frame house,
I conclude that the Zeno Philips house was frame. Zeno Philips's
friend Jared Groce imported lumber from Alabama to build a frame
house in Eagle Lake for his daughter Sarah An G oce Whartf� n a d
son -in -law Willi Ha ris Wharton. conclude that in 1 6 /7t
AID
/)1-M" we Philips might also have imported lumber to build a frame
house. William Wharton's younger brother John Austin Wharton also
lived in the frame house at Eagle Lake. E. M. Pease studied law in
John Wharton's law office, was admitted to the bar in April, 1837
and in December became Wharton's law partner in Brazoria.(60) John
Wharton, more than Sam Houston, directed the 15- minute battle of
San Jacinto (61), one of the decisive battles of history. At his
funeral in 1838, David Burnet called him "the keenest blade on the
field at San Jacinto. "(62) On modern maps Eagle Lake is below
Bernardo, which is down the road from San Felipe. As the crow
flies, Eagle Lake is as near Bryan, as it is near Brazoria on the
coast. So there is still the question of which Brazoria, or of
belonging to both Brazorias via steamboat on the Brazos.
On the other hand, Zeno Philips might have gotten the lumber
ID for his house from John R. Harris, his partner in the cotton
business, who came to Texas after he met Moses Austin in Missouri.
(bro
Harris had a saw mill at Harrisburg, that sawed from three to five
thousands pieces of lumber a day.(63)
Jared Groce's houses, whether of frame or of logs, were built
by slaves. A Groce wrote: "There were many expert carpenters and
brick masons among slaves. "(64) Since Zeno Philips had 22 slaves,
I conclude that they built his house, cotton gin, and other
improvements on his league. The Philips- Pease -Rea House, despite
its periods of disrepair and repair is better built that most
houses. Those who have inspected the roof say that it is well
supported. The high pitch of the roof is like that of the French
Legation in Austin except old photos show what it still has: a
roof that curves up like this:
Ar
It has the shiplap like that of the buildings of the Waterloo
compound, built by the sons of Philips's partner John R. Harris in
Waterloo (named for his hometown of Waterloo, New York), which
became Austin in 1839.
I conclude that the Philips- Pease -Rea House was built by
slaves. In Washington County the 1834 Samuel Seward house was
built by slaves. Like Pease, who descended from a family that had
five members in the British Parliament (65), Samuel Seward
descended from the Seward that "led the Birnam Wood attack on
Dunsinane in retaliation for the murder of King Duncan by MacBeth
4E: in the Middle Ages. "(66)
Tradition has it that houses of early Texas were put together
with pegs. This was not true for the Philips house nor other
houses. Nails came by boat from New Orleans.(67) The Philips
house was a dog -trot house, but its dog -trot was only 8 feet wide,
half as small as the 15- foot -wide dog -trot of the 1822 Bernardo
Bachelors' Hall. It did not have a bathroom or closets. it did
not have many windows, and its only doors were those which enclosed
the dog- trot.(68)
The Philips house did have a cotton gin. The location of this
gin had to be either to the side or back because the house was too
close to the road to have anything in front. Today this house is
one room (16 feet) closer to the street than the other houses on
30th. I conclude that this house once stood alone on its road, and
that this road was part of the Air -line Road that led to the Brazos
River.(69) Air -line was the name of the route that John R.
Harris's boats had between the Brazos and New Orleans.(70) On this
route Harris with Philips as partner in 1829 shipped 100 bales of
cotton that they had bought from Jared Groce. The year before, 84
bales of cotton went via this route on The Rights of Man.(71)
Since Zeno Philips had the cotton and cotton gin, even if Harris
had the boats, I conclude that they were partners in 1828 as well
as 1829. It is possible that they had been partners in Missouri
before they came to Texas in 1824.(72) That the Philips house and
gin once stood alone on the Philips League is supported by the fact
that the road in front of this house forced all the streets in the
Philips Addition to meet Texas Avenue at an angle, but streets in
other additions are perpendicular to Texas Avenue.
Jared Groce has been called the father of Texas agriculture
because he planted the first cotton in Texas and erected the first
cotton gin in Texas in 1825.(73) His brother -in -law Edwin Waller
(who in 1839 directed the building of Austin and became its first
mayor) (74) in 1831 shipped cotton down the Brazos to New Orleans
on a schooner, which "means of transportation has made cotton the
king crop of Washington County. "(75) (which then included Brazos
I FY- 2 -- 1 7 . % i Ld 2 u 2 2.aQ.■/4,6- / f
One reason that Groce and Philips came to Texas to plant
cotton was that "cotton root rot had already begun to endanger
Southern cotton. "(76) This danger to Southern cotton was partly
responsible for the Federal Government's act after the Civil War to I
set up land -grant colleges with Experiment Stations to study cotton
IL root rot.(77) At that time E. M. Pease was Governor of Texas for k V
t he third time. He had known both Groce and Philips and their
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success with cotton. The Groce Plantation was much nearer the Q / W
Philips League than most maps show.(78) It was because this was V"
the cotton growing area more than a possible desire to have a land- i (i�
grant college on or near the Philips -Pease League, that led Pease
l ¢
�\
to use his influence to determine the location of Texas A & M
` )
College. Agriculture and Experiment Stations were of much interest ji
to all the Pease family. It was at an agricultural fair that Pease Nir
and others formed the Texas Historical Society.(79) At A & M a
quarrel arose over who was going to get the Experiment Station
money. Until the 1960's the Experiment Station got the most money
and the best men. Even the A & M Library got more money because of
ii ty its connection with the Experiment Station.(80) The best man of A
& M's Class of 1922 was Homer Rea, Sr., (81) and in 1925 he was
appointed the youngest superintendent ever of the Temple Experiment
Station, where he did research on cotton root rot. In 1937 he was
transferred to College Station to be the first and for years the
only man in weed research. When asked who was the one person most
known in the Experiment Station, the answer was always Homer Rea.
He was the essence of the Experiment Station - a pioneer in
agricultural research, as his son was to become a pioneer in
computer research. And he came to live on the "boasted productive
soil ", first renting 814 East 30th from 1939 to 1950, then buying
810 East 30th, the house of Philips and Pease, who were almost as
interested in cotton as Homer Rea. But not quite, because when
Homer Rea asked William Albert Thomas for the hand of Carrie Bel
Thomas, all he talked about was cotton.(82)
The first indications of a house on the Philips League are the
words "built" and "other improvements ". Such words are not
mentioned again in the abstract. Only in 1883 is the word
"property" used, when on October 2, 1883, the railroad trustees
sold to W. R. Cavitt, title to "the land, lots, and property, in
Block 10, Philips Addition for $1,000. "(83) If Pease in 1849
bought the whole League for $3,500 and in 1883 Cavitt bought Block
10 for $1,000, I conclude that Block 10 had a house worth $1,000 on
it. In 1876 Cavitt had built his big, brick house on the next
block and had paid $5,000 for it.(84)
With the idea of building a big, brick house and of developing
the Philips Addition, E. M. Pease on December 29, 1852, sold 2,436
acres of the Philips League for $2,436 to Columbus R. Patton, the
one who had signed the $51,000 bond for William G. Hill to be
Administrator for the Philips League.(85) Witnesses to the sale
were William G. Hill and B. C. Jones, listed with Zeno Philips as
pioneers of Brazos County.(86) This acreage included the frame
house that the Peases were living in, but they in turn bought lots
out of acreage the on which to build a big, brick house, including
Blocks 11, 17, and 23, next to their house on Block 10.(87) They
never built a house on one of these lots, because they moved to
Austin in December, 1853, when Pease was elected Governor. Later
he sold Blocks 11, 17, 23, 31, and 33 to W. R. Cavitt.(88) After
his death, Lucadia Pease sold Blocks 8, 9, and 21 to W. R.
Cavitt.(89) A June 29, 1909, map of the Philips -Pease League made
for Fred Cavitt by Attorney F. L. Henderson shows that the E. M.
• Pease estate still owned 1,008 acres in one section, 521 acres in
another section, and still had title to the 103 3/4 acres, which
Cavitt was in the process of paying for.(90)
As early as the 1851 nomination, Pease knew that he would be
Governor and would be leaving the small Philips house and
developing the league into a town and hopefully a university, like
Baylor University at nearby Independence, where the value of land
i n the 1850's was $35,000 an acre!(91) So, the December 29, 1852 V
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( sale of Pease acreage to Patton was the beginning of Brazoria's
___J
becoming Bryan. But within five years Patton was dead. On July 1, Ye_.L "/
1857, John Adriance gave bond for $265,000 to be Administrator of
the Patton estate (92), which after 12 years the court ordered him
to sell on July 6, 1869, to the highest bidder - a J. 0.
• Jackson.(93) On July 29 Jackson paid $2,500 for the acreage, and
on August 2 Jackson sold it for $3,804 to the railroad trustees W.
•
c
R. Baker, Abraham Groesbeck, W. J. Hutchins, and T. A. Rice, all of
Harris County (94) and all of whom (including their representative
Elgin) had streets in the Philips Addition named for them.
Newspaper stories have shown that the town of Bryan began on
April 9, 1860, when William Joel Bryan deeded land to the railroad
trustees, in return for which they named the town Bryan.
• tr anted or % ' I i .m. . B r y aii
Tilemo y� ` • to .) le n, GI . '; p e d i t i on h
The site and name of Bryan arei.the village of Bryan was hated in'ptunity was a "hummer," Composed,
osely linl.ed with the early his - 11866 and 1867, and at that time It of a• mixture of saints and sinners,.
of lexus since the land first was the terminus of the tailrcad. ,',But as the railroad w$s built fur-
'''et aside•r`fu tlto?':city uas Cart of Before the close 'of the Civil war tiler north, to such points as Bearne
•ague No 10 of the grant to the read had been built to Svlil }ican, and Franklin, and on toward Dallas,
tcphen F. Atritin oy. the Republic then a thriving community and the the element that had followed the
Texas. The village was named starting place for the Sanger family, rails to Bryan continued to follow,
r William Joel Bryan, who roar- which later becamf widely known and the community became more
•3 into the Austin family, in Texas mercantile circles. But normal village, but still retained
i l'Vihiam Joel Bryan was the father when Bryan became the rail head, Faith trade territory,
•
the late. Guy M. Bryan of Hcus the fate of Millic:an.was sealed. .When Bryan was founded the ter-
: Bryan quickly developed a popula- try it served. was the stantpi,,g
` a ,tbe grandfather of T avia" tiou of rzrx?tit 500, and it became the ! ground '1 of duns, and of 17ar: '.IC
,j president of the Fttsi �
trading point for a , seat area in gango. The Old San Antonio trail -,
R ttk 'of Bryan, lie camel
w
;Texas. Merchandise of all sorts as the King's highKa3 ' `',vvittcit tan
exai with the second Austin shipped to Bryant by rail and then through, the northern seetion'of the
• " >`pedttion landing. at the mouth of sent 'by ot;= ,vagen .teams to aucn county, was often used by these
a: Brazos in 18$1, places as \vac:o, Dallas Corsicana groups, as well es by Mexican trad-
On April 9, 1800, Bryan deeded a and Denison antf,'of course, to inter- ers going between San Augustine
;tart of League No 10 to A. Ctoes- mediate points. and San Antonio, with their . burro
,ek and R. Baker, trustees for the 1�roi i reports that have come trains, loaded with merchand se
i and T. C.,-railroad. On this plat',do v..n, the. yetra ttie yokng cctm• atad S ome siive aitd gold.
But William Joel was only one of three Bryan brothers, who
inherited land from their uncle, Stephen F. Austin, who had
accumulated 70 leagues!(95) He never lived in Bryan. His brother
Moses, who interpreted Santa Anna's surrender speech, lived at
Independence (96), and his younger and more influential brother Guy
Bryan, Sr. was Senator in Austin when Pease was governor. They
were close friends (97), and worked in Austin together to bring the
railroad through leagues 7, 9, and 10, by passing Harvey Mitchell's
`r Booneville.(98) William Joel named his son Guy Bryan, Jr. This
Guy lived in Houston, but was buried in Bryan.
•
The first real estate boom of Bryan - fed by Federal money
granted in 1866 for land -grant College - was the Philips Addition.
Although Texas A & M did not open until 1876, planning for it began
kk
during Pease's 1867 -69 term as Governor. Pease had more to do with k
choosing the general location than Harvey Mitchell, who as agent tl
manipulated the exact location, which remained 5 miles from Bryari %. ` X
until after the Kennedy assassination, when Bryan "moved" to
d
College.(99) I always heard that the reason for the 5 miles was to 4
keep the boys "down on the farm," but the reason was that Harvey 1
Mitchell was Irish.(100) Had the location been chosen on the
Philips -Pease League, Pease would likely have donated the
land.(101) Pease waited for the location to be chosen before
opening the Philips Addition. Then on August 21, 1871, Pease came
to Bryan from Austin, and he and Harvey Mitchell stepped off the
blocks and named the streets for Texas heroes, who were personal
friends to Pease.(102) Monroe Street (30th) was named for
President Monroe, whose 1823 Monroe Doctrine prepared the way for
the 1824 Texas Magna Carta. Pease immortalized Zeno Philips by
naming the Philips Addition. Pease Street is the only place that
Pease named for himself. He could have had the town of Bryan named
Pease. In 1871 the Austin architect Laramour came to College k �
Station to start the slow job of building A & M's main,
t nCJ
building.(103) Since where Laramour went, Abner Cook went, I Y t
conclude that he came, too. Since they were both friends of Pease,
I conclude that Pease got them the job. The Philips Addition could
416 not be stepped off until there could be a Partition Deed, which
could not be made until the Patton part was probated, which took 12
years. During that time the Philips -Pease house in the Patton part
must have been vacant and in disrepair. When Pease sold the
acreage to Patton in 1852, it was agreed that the partition would
be made at a later date, which turned out to be August 21, 1871,
when the value was $21 an acre.(104) If the value was still $21 an
acre in 1883 when W. R. Cavitt (Mitchell's brother-in-law) bought
Block 10 from the railroad trustees for $1,000, the 4 acres of land
were worth only $84, which means that Block 10 had a $1,000 house
on it, which I conclude to be the Philips -Pease house.
For 19 years this house was a Cavitt house, a half -block from
the big Cavitt house. Since the old photograph that I have of the C1 �
house was taken from the roof of the big Cavitt house by Howard
I conclude that they considered the house theirs, even us
after they sold it on August 1, 1902, to investor Tom Castles and
C. A. Adams, then foreclosed and sold it to G. W. Brown on December
12, 1902, for a total of $689.(105) This photograph shows the dirt
Cavitt tennis court, the dirt Monroe Street, and 810 with its dirt
yard and outhouse. Also shown is 814, which Gainer Jones, whose
parents Columbus Jones and Mary Gainer Jones owned it from 1914 to
1930, told me in the 1980's had been built in 1912 by a cotton
buyer from the North. This dates it after 1912 and before 1918.
Also shown is a brick building in the right background. Some say
that this was the Bryan Music Academy, torn down in 1909 or 1910,
but it seems to be one of the dormitories of the Bryan Baptist
Academy, which taught art and music. This explains why some called
it the Bryan Music Academy. It operated as Texas Women's College
from 1905 to 1909, when it became the co -ed Bryan Baptist Academy
from 1909 to 1918, when Eugene Edge bought it and turned the two
dormitories into the Edge Apartments, occupied mostly by A & M
faculty families.
The physician for the Bryan Baptist Academy from 1910 to 1918
was Dr. S. C. Richardson (106), who lived in the small house that
the Cavitts sold in 1902 to Tom Castles and C. A. Adams, who after
paying off the foreclosure sold it in 1910 to Mrs. John Impson of
Coleman County for a rent house.(107) Mrs. Impson's first renter
seems to have been Dr. Richardson, who must have rented it in 1911,
before he moved his bride Erma Lou into it in 1912.(108)
Erma Lou was her husband's assistant. She was intelligent and
had a love for what was no longer called the Philips -Pease house,
but was called the Richardson house. I talked to her on June 7,
1973. She showed me a 1912 photo of the house, which was hidden by
plants. She apologized for having lived in the small house, saying
that then houses in Bryan were hard to find, and there was no place
else to live. She said that they rented the house from 1912 to
1918, when they bought it because the owner did not want to pay for
the 1918 paving of the street. But that year the Bryan Baptist
Academy closed when the merchant Eugene Edge bought the property
for apartments, and Dr. Richardson had to get a job in Dallas.
They returned in 1936 and rented the new stucco house that later
became the English Professor Hedgecock's house, next door to 810.
Both the Richardson boys were born at 810, and the girls from the
Bryan Baptist Academy would wave at them from the boardwalk across
: the street. Mrs. Richardson said that they were too busy living in
810 to remodel it. The ceilings were high, and the whole house was
heated by two beautiful wood stoves. There was no fireplace, and
the north room where the fireplace was put in, in 1932, was a
bedroom. The living room was on the south side. There was an
outhouse.(109) When Dr. Richardson left for Dallas, he "sold" the
house on January 30, 1919, to just- out -of- medical school Dr. L. 0.
Wilkerson, who before leaving for China to be a missionary,
executed the vendor's lien note for $4,460.(110) Officially Dr.
Richardson sold the house to Wilkerson's parents -in -law, the Ed S.
Wickes, who moved up from Houston to live in it and put their three
boys through A & M. When Dr. Wilkerson came back from China in
1926, with his two Sara Ednas (wife and baby daughter, who is now
Mrs. Joe Holmgreen, sister -in -law to County Judge Holmgreen), he
did not have the money to pay off the 810 note and also buy the
stone house at 603 East 31st.(111) So he began to sell the house
back and forth to bankers and BB &L officers, all the while his in-
laws were living in it. On July 21, 1926, his father -in -law Ed
Wickes released it to him. (112) On October 9, 1926, he sold it for
$5,000 to banker W. T. Crenshaw, who sold it back to him for $5,000
on May 3, 1927, the terms being $2,000 cash in hand and $3,000
vendor's lien.(113) On May 5, 1927, he sold it on the same terms
to Robert Thomas of BB &L.(114) On June 11, 1927 Thomas sold the
$3,000 note to BB &L.(115)
On June 7, 1930, Thomas sold it to S. L. Boatwright, the son
of the banker Boatwright who made his son -in -law Travis Bryan, Sr.
President of the First National Bank, for $3,000 plus taxes and
insurance and a $778.52 note due in 3 months.(116) S. L.
Boatwright at 810 was then a neighbor of his sister and brother -in-
law, the Travis Bryans, who lived a block up the street in the big
yellow house across Hutchins Street from the big Cavitt House.
April 12, 1932, Boatwright made a Mechanics Lien to W. W. Hall &
Co. for $400, who transferred the lien to Postmaster Wilson Bradley
on October 5, 1932, who transferred it to BB &L on June 8,
1934.(117) The 1932 Mechanics Lien was for remodeling 810 East
30th.(118)
Women describe houses. From my having visited 810 as an 814
renter - neighbor from 1930 to 1950 and having lived in 810 as the
daughter of the owners Homer dnd Carrie Bel Rea from 1950 to 1972
and as the owner by inheritance from 1972 to the present 1992, I
have intimately seen how the remodeling was done to 810 in 1932.
My observations have been supplemented by the observations of Mrs.
S. C. (Erma Lou) Richardson from 1912 to 1919, which she told me on
June 7, 1973, at her house around the corner at 506 S. Haswell, and
by the observations of Mrs. L. O. (Sara Edna) Wilkerson, who from
1912 to 1918 was one of the Baptist Academy girls who waved at the
Richardson boys from the 30th Street boardwalk and who visited her
parents in it from 1919 to 1930 and herself lived in it in 1926,
when she and her husband and baby returned from China - which
observations she told me in July, 1986, at the home of her sister,
Mrs. W. C. (Lila Wickes) Mitchell, 3510 Cavitt Avenue. The 1932
remodeling was:
1. Lowering the high ceilings from 11 feet 3 inches to 9
feet 3 inches, making a 2 -foot space between the 2
ceilings, which space encloses damp, stagnant air,
making more dampness than in the days of Zeno Philips
e
and Marshall Pease.
2. Placing concrete stones under the north foundation to
enclose the underneath of the house to keep the wind
from blowing out the gas pilot of a large, ground -level
gas furnace. A large trap door was made in the floor
to install the furnace. In 1973 I had the leaking gas
furnace taken out. In 1950 these "stones" of unknown
origin were all over the yard. We had them hauled off,
but some are still behind the garage, which puts the
blame on the 1932 Boatwrights, because Mrs. Wilkerson
said, "I had my first vegetable garden in the back."
3. The planting on the sides and back a tall privet hedge
• to supplant a fence of barbed wire and posts. Three of
these old fence posts still stand at the extreme back
of the land that 814 owners now claim. An old post on
the extreme back on the 804 side along with the privets
were dug up by the 1979 804 owner to erect his wooden
fence on what had been considered 810 property. In 1950,
Homer Rea, Sr. had 2 concrete survey markers embedded in
front to try to prevent encroachments.
4. The building of a driveway and garage with a room,
which room has always been called "the little house ",
like a garconiere. The room had a shower and commode,
which in 1950 didn't work. The driveway was moved
southward from the old location, from which wagons and
horses and cars had parked on the front yard. When
Monroe Street (30th) was paved in 1918, an opening in
(L,
the curb was left for the old driveway, which opening
still exists on 804 land, but mostly on 810 land. With
the 1918 street paving came sidewalks. By 1950 the
sidewalk had been "uprooted" by tree roots, and a new
sidewalk was built.
5. Arbor vitae hiding the front porch replaced the climbing
roses and trellis that hid the front porch in the
Richardson days. In 1950 Carrie Bel Rea asked Homer Rea
to cut these down, thus exposing 810 to the glaring sun,
as it was in the days of Philips and Pease. She did not
ask him to cut down the front cedar tree, but I had it
cut down after I inherited the house in 1972.
IL „ 6. The front porch was changed from a floor -level wooden one
with steps to the dirt to a ground -level red -dyed cement
floor with steps at the front door. A gutter was
attached to the flat roof of the porch - the only gutter
on the house until I had some put on in 1984 to try to
keep water from collecting under the house.
7. Bermuda grass was planted not - too - successfully on the
dirt yard. The fig tree that Dr. Richardson had planted
in the back yard was left and kept producing until an "I-
can-do- anything -I -like" yardman that I had in the 1970's
cut it down. In 1950 Carrie Bel Rea and I hauled dirt on
the wheelbarrow and planted St. Augustine grass on the
dirt. We brought the grass from our 814 lawn, which
Carrie Bel had started in 1939 with one sprig from the
Conoco station at Texas Avenue and 29th, the "social
cry
club" where men gathered to talk after supper. This
Conoco station still stands across from City Hall -
dilapidated, but a symbol of slow, social life that does
not now exist.
8. The front room that extends 15 feet closer to the street
than other houses changed from a bedroom to a living
room. The old photograph shows that the north wall had
one window and no chimney. In 1932 this window was taken
out and a fireplace and chimney put in its place. Then
a window was put on either side of the fireplace.
Normally, breaking up a wall like this weakens a house,
but the slaves that built this house were so expert that
• they made it a "you- can -do- anything- to -me- house ".
Mysteriously, the women who lived in this house - Lucadia
Pease, Erma Lou Richardson, Carrie Bel and Joy - have
been "you- can -do- anything- to -me" women, who stand, no
matter what is done to them. Other 1932 things done to
this room were to put a south window facing the front
porch, to replace a regular interior door into the
hallway (dog -trot) with a door -less arcade and to cut a
large opening in the interior wall dividing the living
room and dining room and fill it with glass French doors.
In 1950 Carrie Bel Rea preceded the 1990 Federal Barrier -
Free Act by asking Homer to take out these doors, leaving
an empty space, and to install them as separate exterior
• doors at the back of the house.
9. The hallway (dog -trot) was divided in 1932 into a large
front vestibule, a large middle closet, and a large
bathroom. So that this bathroom could have closets, a
large opening, a little larger than the one for the
French doors, was made between the dog -trot and
10. the kitchen. Adjoining the closets opening into the
bathroom, but sticking out into the kitchen, was a china
closet with glass French doors opening into the kitchen.
This meant that a new door opening had to be made between
the dining room and kitchen. A wooden swing door was
installed. It always swung shut unless propped. The one
kitchen window was taken out, and installed were two
small windows below which was installed the kitchen sink.
• In 1950, to make more room, Carrie Bel had the small sink
changed from the exterior wall to the interior wall next
to the chimney. That made it easy to take the pots from
the gas cookstove on the other side of the chimney to the
sink. And that made it possible for her to stand at the
kitchen windows and ask her husband who was outside with
me, "What's Joy doing ?"
The chimney on the kitchen side had an upper hole for the
gas hot water heater and on the dining -room side, a lower
hole for a wood stove. Before 1932, there had been a
chimney in the dog -trot, the only remains of which is a
patch in the ceiling, but the exterior chimney can be
110 seen in old photographs. If a wood -stove had been
connected to this chimney, women could have cooked on it,
making a kitchen out of the dog -trot. The dog -trot
c
before 1932 had been a bedroom, because Mrs. Wilkerson
said, as if it happened yesterday, "Sara Edna and I came
home from China before my husband, and the first thing we
saw when we walked up to the front door were my parents
asleep in bed."
11. Sometime between the Richardson outhouse and the
Boatwright bathroom, a Wilkerson bathroom was put in.
Mrs. Wilkerson said that to get to the bathroom, one had
to go through the kitchen door onto a narrow back porch
into the bathroom. She said that she used to swing her
baby girl on this narrow back porch. One can look at the
outside of the back of the house and see that 1930 lumber
(„ is interspersed with older lumber in a way to indicate
that some of the older lumber had been torn off to make
a narrow lean -to back porch and bathroom, which was taken
off in 1930, enclosing the dog -trot again with 1930
lumber and 2 small 1930 windows. When this was done,
12. the back bedroom acquired an east window, and east
exterior door with small wooden porch and steps. In
addition it acquired three south windows instead of two,
another instance that the original house had few windows
in the old pioneer fashion of having few windows as a
protection against Indians or bandits. In 1950 the
wooden porch was rotten, and since two replacement
porches rotted between 1950 and 1972, I never replaced
(ir the porch after I inherited the house. In 1950 Homer Rea
replaced the exterior door with one of the glass French
Crie
doors, which has made that back door a "picture window ".
13. A wide lean -to back porch was adjoined to the kitchen in
1932. This back porch also had an exterior door (which
Homer Rea replaced with the other French door) with a
small, always- rotting porch that I never replaced after
I inherited the house. The wide lean -to had small 1930
windows on all sides.
When I asked Lila Wickes Mitchell about the 1932 remodeling of
810, her comment was "The Reas did it over." and almost anyone I
talked to would tell me that Mrs. Marshall Peters (the Rea's
neighbor) told them: "More work was done on that house and yard
than any house in town." What the Reas did, consisted of undoing
the expensive 1932 remodeling and doing it themselves. Having no
ladders, Carrie Bel and Joy were standing on tall boxes papering
the ceiling of the living room, when banker Ellen (Mrs. Marshall)
Peters walked in and announced for us to get our furniture out of
814 immediately, because she had just called Fred Burt in Vermont
and bought 814 over the telephone.
Fred Burt was the A & M geology professor from whom the Reas
had rented 814 from 1939 to 1950, when they bought 810 from him.
Fred Burt and his mother, Lucy J. B. Burt, winter - camped in 810
from 1934 to 1950. They did not consider it living, because, as A
& M's Geoscience Professor Earl Cook wrote in his 1983 lecture
Marooned in Aggieland, the A & M professors from out of state,
instead of appreciating their A & M faculty privileges, considered
that they were marooned in Aggieland. The Burts were from 123
Union Street, Bennington, Vermont, where they lived in the summers.
try
They had nothing good to say about the South. Lucy Burt always
said that Southerners dig their graves with their teeth but that
Vermonters, who eat apple pie for breakfast, live to be 100. That
turned out to be true, because Fred Burt, who was older than Homer
and Carrie Bel Rea, outlived them and wrote to me: "What was mine
is now yours." The highest compliment that Lucy Burt could pay,
she paid to Carrie Bel Rea: "You're the smartest woman in the
South." Fred let the Reas rent 814 for $35 a month, because Carrie
Bel was the only one who could please his mother, who demanded
afternoon visits as part of the rent. Carrie Bel took her sewing
with her on these visits. I remember a teal sweater that she
knitted for me and an evening dress with silver bows all over it
that I wore to the upstairs Maggie Parker Dining Room on the corner
of Bryan and 26th. The Burts had lived out at College at the
corner of Burt and Dexter Street next to the log cabin, where the
artist Marie Haines painted, met Fred secretly, and waited for Lucy
to die so that she could marry Fred. Lucy used to say, "People say
that Fred will marry Marie after I die, but he won't." He did. In
1950, at 65, he came down from Vermont to claim his 65- year -old
Marie. The wedding was on Dexter at the home of Marie's sister,
Ruth Haines Clark and her husband Wheezy Clark, so called because
he wheezed during his lectures on Economics. Chicken mousse,
instead of cake, was the wedding dish. Marie used to hope that she
would live in 810, but Lucy didn't die in time; so Marie and Fred
had to live in Vermont. They had to wait for Lucy to die, because
t or she was the one who had inherited railroad money, which - although
not enough to support a daughter -in -law - was enough for Fred to
(by
buy 810 from Boatwright for $3,500 on December 26, 1934, and later
to buy 814 for $4,000 in time to rent it for $35 to the Reas in
1939. Burt's professor's salary was not enough because he was not
in agriculture, then the only high - paying field.
Although faculty in agriculture were the highest paid, it
still was not enough. Faculty privileges took the place of money.
Ernest Langford let Homer Rea's children Homer and Joy spend the
summers in his 4th floor Architecture Department. (Homer would
have been an architect if WW II had not pressed him into
engineering.) Homer Rea, Sr. (who cared for cotton and weeds, not
books) had a Faculty Library Card, which Carrie Bel and Joy used to
check out books for "H. E. Rea ". The A & M Library clerks would
say, "Mr. Rea reads more books than anyone in the College." Carrie
Bel was so smart at stretching Homer's faculty salary that he asked
her, "How do you pay the bills ?" She said, "I robbed a bank."
That is how "The Reas did it over," with little money and how -
after the Reas died - Joy continued to "do it over" with no money.
The 1950 "doing it over" undid the expensive 1932 remodeling.
Carrie Bel had Homer take down the chandeliers and take out the
ceiling -high ornate mantlepiece and put a simple frame around the
fireplace. Her taste, like that of her son Homer, was "simple,
almost severe," as she described it. Although Homer was destined
to live in California and not in 810, 810 was his. He paid the
$3,500 cash for it - the first time in all its history that cash
was paid. In 1985, when the City Inspector told Joy that she would
(r, be forced to sell her house or go to jail, Homer called from
California, asking anxiously, "Are you going to sell it? Are you ?"
Homer, without objection, allowed Joy to inherit 810 and their
parents' savings of $110,000, which she lost in the oil boom of the
1970's and 1980's by digging 3 oil wells and 1 water well under the
supervision of the "I- can -do- anything -I- like" yard man- oil man.
But all the while she continued the doing -it -over. Having
inherited Carrie Bel's desire for barrier -free design, the first
thing Joy did after inheriting the house was to make a door out of
the middle bay window, making an easy exit from the house. During
Carrie Bel's thirteen years of cancer, entrance into and exit from
the house were difficult. As she and Carrie Bel had done in 1950,
she alone took down the deteriorating wallpaper. But there was no
money to buy new wallpaper, because what money she had, had to be
(b used to try to keep the stripper oil wells from being stopped up
with paraffin. She invented a way to stop the stopping -up by
flowing the wells with air. To demonstrate this invention with the
hope of selling it to the then INVENT Department of A & M, in 1981
she dug a 400 foot water well in 810's front yard and flowed it for
9 years without ever having it stopped up or pulled. Also in 1981
she had built a carport for her truck, because the yard man -oil man
occupied the garage and little house.
On September 6, 1983, the fight with the City of Bryan began.
The neighbors called the City to have the water well taken down
because it was not historical, and when the City Inspector and
Historic Commissioner came and asked the yard man -oil man about the
well, he said, "I had nothing to do with it," and died from fear at
the well a few hours later. The next day I built a fence of
landscape timbers to protect the well from the city. For two years
the neighbors called the City daily to have the fence and well
taken down and to force me to sell my house or go to jail. From
October 18 to November 4, 1987, the City had me on trial, asking
for a $10,000 fine to be put against my house as a lien. City
Attorney Andron asked (without objection from Attorney Cofer) and
obtained from Judge J. D. Langley a ruling that the jury not be
told that I was poor "because that would be highly inflammatory"
and because "her house is worth a lot of money ". Cofer, whose
father had been an A & M English professor since 1910 and the first
College Archivist, had offered in September 1984 to protect me, my
house and fence and the water well, and my two pet goats. He said,
"It's a clear case of harassment by the Historic District." He was
my charity lawyer for six years. But it was his little joke. By
July, 1990, I understood that he was like his father, who boasted
in Observations of A & M in 1910 of a "little joke" he had in
telling a lady that he would pay for her meal if she would sit with
him and then when the bill came, telling the lady to pay for the
meal herself.(119) Seeing that I had no lawyer to protect me, I
let anyone who would, take down the carport and the fence for the
landscape timbers in it. All this time I was living on $100
monthly food stamps.
Part of the "little joke" was a new bathroom that the lawyer
had me build out of landscape timbers in 1987 to "comply" with the
City Code. Also, since he had told me that I could fix up my house
with money that he would get me by suing the city, I had taken out
the wooden floors of the living room and of the kitchen in 1985
with the expectation that I could soon replace them with concrete
III
floors that would prevent the dampness of the house suffered by
Lucadia Pease and the women after her. Cement mixed with lime
(which most contractors forget to do) prevents both dampness and
the "sweating" of cement. Cement floors in historical houses have
been accepted. The 1850 farm houses that were moved to Museum
Headquarters in Fort Worth were all given cement floors, and this
Museum Headquarters was described as a "gateway to a place where
you may reach back to another time and, with greater knowledge of
how far you have come, be better able to choose which way you will
go. "(120)
For seven years, both the house and I have been in disrepair,
which makes a house ineligible for a historical marker.* Two weeks
• ago a black carpenter nicknamed J. J. said to me, "I can't stand to
see you living this way. God sent me. I am going to take your
house out of disrepair." He had the City turn my utilities on.
Surely, he descends from the expert slaves who built the house.
A week ago, God sent me someone else: Linda Williams, who put
this narrative on computer so that I might get a historical marker.
Dying, Carrie Bel said to Joy, "I could never have made it
without you. Who will take care of you ?" Now she knows. Linda
Williams and Jesus -like carpenter Robert Densey. If those who read
this wish to donate, even a small amount, to help buy materials,
please send donations to:
Robert Densey
1706 Scanlin
Bryan, Texas 77802
• Telephone: 409-822-7703
* I applied for an individual grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts, and I need a historical marker before such a grant
might be awarded to me.
i■
4
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i
CHAPTER III
FIRST OCCUPANTS AND FUR \ISHINGS
m e „shr)
ELISHA M. PEASE
December 21, 1853 to December 21, 1857
� ' n
Elisha Marshall Pease, the first governor to oc-
•
cupy the new Governor's Mansion, is one of the , Jar _,-
unsung heroes of Texas' independence and state-
hood. No one except Sam Houston lived to serve
Texas more during the last days of Mexican rule, � .4
under the independent Republic, and during the ; T '`''
early period of statehood in the American Union. a °.'” . 0
■ Although never achieving general acclaim com- . ,,,„,,, .
mensurate with his accomplishments, there are a
`
1 ` 4 1`
'+ • few historians who have been more generous in ,, ,i •
their praise. For instance Francis R. Lubbock, him- -'' '' • t;. a
self an outstanding contemporary, wrote: , .,, _ : ,
Pease ... was considered a fine constitutional `�
lawyer, a great statesman, and patriot of in-
corruptible integrity. Besides this, Pease was .
, wideawake and progressive in his views of
public policy'
Benjamin Miller, in a master's thesis at the Uni-
versity of Texas at Austin in 1937, wrote: Elisha . I. Pease
No other man was officially connected with , Governor Pease was truly an extraordinary ,
so many phases of its development from the man. His long, useful career besmirched by
organization of the Mina committee to the no shadow of scandal, no dereliction of clutv
inauguration of the regular constitutional ... His monument is found in the enduring
• government, with Houston as the regularly laws he framed and procured; in the splen-
chosen president. If any man knew at first did institutions of charity and education that
hand the evolution of the government of the he founded and fostered; in the public edi-
Republic of Texas completely, that man was fices that he reared for the housing of his
E. M. Pease. State's officials; in the magnificent railroad
system that knits together the remotest sec -
James T DeShields, in his book about all Texas dons of the commonwealth in a community
111 presidents and governors up to 1940, said of Pease: of commerce and internal development.'
55
THE TEXAS GOVERNOR'S MANSION
0
Gone To Texas ` , A :
�+'
- -I
E. M. Pease was born in Connecticut on January i. , � t •
3, 1812. The Pease family was a distinguished one, x-
both in England and America. It is said to have had �►
i ` y
five members in the British Parliament. After re- 1'► ,
ceiving such education as was then available in
New England, as well as some business experi-
y
ence, Pease became an extensive traveler in New ,'.
England and states between there and New Or- r t ti �x
leans.3 , ' -.
The pioneer spirit of seeking adventure and for- ,/ r. i .
tune lan him in Texas on his twenty-third
.....,,
birthday, January 3, 1835, with a friend, D. C. Bar- • .
rett. They settled at Mina (now Bastrop), and took • . -
the oath of allegiance to the government of Mexico `t; ! .
on April 13, 1835. They became members of the IN
first "Committee of Safety" organized at Mina, and .. t . y
Pease served as secretary. Pease was at first loyal
•
', to Mexico, being a member of the "Peace Party," ' : _•-
as distinguished from the "War Party." However, Lucadia Pease
this did not last long. The tyranny of Santa Anna
caused him to join those who favored indepen-
• dence, and he engaged in the first clash of hostil- Elected Governor
ities at Gonzales in October 1835.
Pease was named secretary of the general coun- In 1853 it was a different story Pease received
cil to the provisional government at San Felipe in the Democratic nomination and ran first in a field
November 1835. There he drafted the document of eight candidates. His opponents included for-
providing for the government • ad interim, later mer Governor Wood, General Thomas Jefferson
serving in it as chief clerk of the Navy p De artment Chambers, J. W Henderson, and W B. Ochiltree.
Pease received 13,091 votes out of the 36,152 votes
and acting secretary of the treasury. He was cast, Ochiltree was second, followed by \food and
elected assistant secretary of the Constitutional Chambers in that order. In 1855, he had already
Convention of 1836, but he was replaced by a new been reelected before his family moved into the
delegate before the Constitution of March 2, 1836 Mansion. This time his principal opponent was
was adopted. Pease was a member of the House Lieutenant Governor D. C. Dickson, Governor
in the First Congress, which assembled in Colum Pease won with 26,336 votes to Dickson's 17,968
bia, and thereafter was appointed by Sam Houston
votes .
to serve as comptroller in his presidential adrnin- Governor and Mrs. Pease had a devoted and lov-
istration. -
ing marriage, as evidenced by their continuous
• • After annexation, Pease served in the House of flow of interesting letters to each other and to rel-
Representatives of the State legislature, where he atives. Among Texas' first families, only Sam and
was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. In this Margaret Houston came anywhere near in their art
capacity; he helped enact many laws beneficial to of letter writing. The Marshall and Lucadia Pease
the courts and to the public. In 1849 and 1850 he correspondence, part of which has been pub -
served in the State Senate. In 1850, he married a lished, reveals intelligence, culture, class and a
distant Connecticut cousin, Lucadia Niles, and certain amount of sophistication along with
brought her to Brazoria. After becoming one of the friendly hospitality:`
State's outstanding attorneys, he announced for It is through extensive quotations from those
• governor in 1851 but withdrew because of illness letters that the story of the first occupants and ac-
in the family quisition of furnishings can hest he told.
•
56
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°1
Associated Press � `wr 11 , -� $ .
BRYAN — A woman who built • .;/}' 1 r ` 7 • 4 , .:
a 5- 5-foot-tall log wall to enclose a � �r *; � �i�.?'' '' }
I
yard filled with goats, chickens ,,,„,a»^ -' • i , L
land piles of dirt has angered it ;.:,,.4.,,..4. .,` *:: 7: 2 H .A r ,r tl Y u e 1
neighbors and created controversy '"'t 17 t � s . } s i ' .�.y '
�a "" _ "� . t ,'''A l t ; i.N 4
on the edge of ed Bryuis Fiat Side ,i4 tk: , � .4 e - le " * " , r .r+ >y� 4 4 r# : , � 4 r , ..t•
But Joy
.Historical Re a 56- year -old Phi ,.a -"",. , n ,t .l + f t � ' f + �; � , I t t :
R ea, " r �. s "„ F r ..,.'..41:1.1.41,'., 'k 'Fi,
.Beta Kappa, said she couldn't care • ,,/..'"� '11.:, „ [3 t " y � ° , 4 .. "" V isvi [ Pr
' ltas what. others think of her ' 1 t. ° t' d. to . r 4 ' , VA , ` t ;, * t
home, a century-old, two-story ., 3 <,. 4, :; < + - a a* : t [ " , . / I , i , ` i E+.�k .. `.
house that has been painted with ,V..✓ i'•l t a -: ` • 1'+� d • . ti I s� ,. ..241 1,14 't 1 'i ,
black crude oil. f ' Y u sto i • - ,.7, •
She said she just wants to be , t * ; i •t ' � ; -,. b t 3 z ';1 ,. ' + x
allowed to w her gardens and n w h a r j
to keep her flack of chickens, her ' ; r " ` 4 ' Zi ',, � ' ' i re.,,' e ' '"" . : i '" ' L
in ., .. + L , $ P . i , ,, �'1[ � - l�j „ yj� . k • :
two goats and to live w.
with a coffin on the front porch ;
' 1 r y �- i ,� a .+ '; l � }y ` ; w - ' ' 4 * " tc., , + t
and a yard covered with piles of ar • t ..• ' y i, �.r . , p „ 1 w F�a " w �" ,. y ` ° -" � '
dirt. , -•• k ,, t > u 1
rs is one of the things my " '' ' i 0 t ; c i � .,. w . - " r • • j ..
D - yjr •
neighbors are complaining about, • `•, , ,, `• ''`p„n 1 4 e• .:.. ' . .., ' . ` N 't •
she said of the Brazos River but K '�'
t
toinLund soil that she buys for $44 a
it cubic yard. "I like dirt. I'd rath- r••=s
er spend money on dirt than 1 . ' ° . t<t. .. , .
dresses. i . ' - . . :. dc� {i _ e °' • ' _.. ;. .. • • - 4
The Bryan City Council, re- , • • .ei........: .. 44oeatai PM
spending to oompL■ints, passed A Jo Re who has an r ef of her rte z , pets o e of her, ts. 2Ps4 4.4.,
zoning rdinance t hat will require • y�, �d�gfnn�' 1; r� �{
d q y µc•Ct �.�,,,t,�ic, ,0,. - f-+ "0 - Fi 1-4 -4. �r..w �G -v ✓.i l'� C t-•
Rea to dismantle the tall fence by � „ >I o f „� 1,L.,� --e . `( 4.44.
S G V .wt - ' Fy�fXa' �' `t'r> eZ /' u f / s i �4 `` G ai _ RRnt sassikt
Oct. lo. � t from the nearest neig r. sand a nrib but ho � ed not to
Bryan Councilman John Mob- City housing officials inspected be identified. "When he was alive,
ley voted against the ordinance, Rea's water well, along with the Dirt is one of the things that house was beautiful, just
which p d, 4 -3, although he log wall and a water tank that sits my neighbors are beautiful. He had beautiful flow -
admits, "Joy really has overdone atop it. She was not ordered to complaining about. ! ens and trees and grass. It Looked
'
it. change a thing. like n � k.'
'I've had three residents of the \ ltea permits her two goats, Pyg- like dirt. 1 d rather Said another neighbor. "The
district tell me, 'For goodness' my and Toggenberg, to roam tree- spend money on dirt house has become an embarrass -
sakes, don't make her tear down ly about her house, and the chick- , ment and it hurts our property
• that fence. We don't want to look ens are either penned in the yard than dresses. values. If I wanted to sell, there's
at what's back of it. "' or in what was once her father's no way I could get out of my
Neighbors have asked some city bedroom. — Joy Rea house now what I put into it."
inspectors to look behind the log The front of the house has When her parents were alive,
wall. weathered to a silver gray, but Rea had a promising academic ca-
I William C. Lewis of the Brazos the back is black from the crude plants. Besides, crude oil doesn't reer. She earned bachelor's and
County Health Department, an- oil used as a wood stain. contain poisons like paint does." master's degree from the Univer-
swering complaints about the ani- "The house was white to begin Neighbors recall the house sity of Texas. She was nearing
orals. went to Reas home and with, but the paint started peel- when it was a showplace. completion of work on a doctorate
found the situation was legal. The ing." said Rea. "Well, I guess yuu "Her father, Homer Rea, was in linguistics from Tulane Univer-
property had the 12,000 square could say I fell in love with crude an agronomist (at Texas A&M sity when she returned to Bryan
feet required for two goats, and oil. I like plants and that's what University in nearby College Sta- to care for her mother during a
the poultry was kept at least 50 crude oil was to start with — lion), and he was a perfectionist." 13-year bout with cancer.
0
FOOTNOTES
(A Method Approved by Del Weniger)
Footnote Numbers Bibliography Number
(1) Abstract, 1, p. 4. (The page numbers are
taken from a xerox copy, which should
correspond with the original in the College
Archives.
(2) Abstract, 1, p. 4.
(3) Abstract, 1, p. 4.
(4) Abstract, 1, p. 5.
(5) Abstract, 1, pp. 5 -6.
(6) Visit, 23, p. 53
(7) Abstract, 1, p. 4.
(8) Webb, 26, p. 372.
(9) Plummer, 16, p. 6.
(10) Webb, 26, p. 372.
(11) Abstract, 1, p. 7.
(12) Abstract, 1, p. 7.
(13) Abstract, 1, p. 9.
(14) Abstract, 1, p. 12.
(15) Abstract, 1, p. 12.
(or (16) Abstract, 26, p. 351.
(17) Abstract, 26, p. 372. Zeno Philips, like
William, was in politics. in 1829, he was
defeated as a candidate for Regidor (Governor).
(18) Pease, 15, p. 2.
(19) McBee, 13, p. 60.
(20) Pease, 15, p. 2.
(21) From 1857 -1859 Guy Bryan was Representative for
the Western District (Bryan and Austin) of
Texas in the 35th Congress.
(22) One reason that the name of Bryan before it was
Bryan has not been known is that Bryan's old
City Hall on the corner of Main and 26th burned
down February 20, 1909. "Many city records for
the years before 1849 were lost." Ragsdale,
17, p. 9.
(23) Williamson, 30, pp. 39 -40. "One -story Greek
Revival houses are the older form, evolved from
the design of the double log house with gallery
and dog -trot. Their galleries (porches) have
columns or posts; the dog -trot is now an
enclosed hall; there is the inevitable door
with sidelights." Williamson, 30, p. 37.
(24) Pease, 15, p. 6.
(25) Texas Governor's Mansion, 20, pp. 55 & 56.
(26) Dietrich, 5, p. 17.
(27) Dietrich, 5. p. 17.
(28) The abstract shows that he died in 1837.
(29) Visit, 23, p. 203.
(30) Miller, 14, p.88.
(31) When I indicate Washington, I mean also its
short neighbor Regent Street, which I conclude
by its name to be the street that Regidors took
to the Ayuntamiento at San Felipe. Zeno
Philips was defeated as a candidate for Regidor
in 1829.
(32) Abstract, 1, p. 3.
(33) Visit, 23, p. 30.
(34) Pease, 15, p. 6.
(35) Texas Governor's Mansion, 20, pp. 55 -56.
(36) Pease, 15, p. 10.
(37) Visit, 23, pg. 34. /Schmitz, 19, p. 44.
(38) Pease, 15, p. 9. "We do not go out much and
live as quiet as snails." January 5, 1853.
(39) From the 1940's through the 1960's, the Homer
Reas visited the Ernest Langfords on Sunday
afternoons. This is one thing that Mr.
Langford often repeated, and his wife,
graciously serving coffee and cake, agreed.
(40) Visit, 23, p. 31.
(41) Visit, 23, p. 213.
(42) Pease, 15, p. 6.
(43) Visit, 23, p. 205.
(44) I cannot locate the page reference.
(lew (45) Creighton, 4, pp. 28 -31. James Austin's son
Stephen F. Austin, Jr., died at age 8 at the
home of W. G. Hill.
(46) Schmitz, 19, p. 41. /Williamson, 30, p. 23.
(48) Pease, 15, p. 8.
(49) Schmitz, 19, p. 96.
(50) Pease, 15, p. 8.
(51) Weniger, 27, p. 10.
(52) Weniger, 27, p. 4.
(53) Weniger, 27, p. 53.
(54) Weniger, 27, p. 34.
(55) Weniger, 27, p. 34. Harvey Mitchell said that
the Carter land (A & M's future location) was
"unbroken canebrake ". Brazos County History,
2, p. 1.
(56) Weniger, 27, pp. 33 -34.
(57) Weinger, 27, pp. 33 -34.
(58) Abstract, 1, p. 3.
(59) Creighton, 4, p. 36. The house was called
Eagle Island, which I conclude to be the modern
Eagle Lake.
(60) Webb, 26, p. 351.
(61) "As the battle line swung over the rise, the
boy with the fife played, Will You Come To The
Bower." The Whartons were so proud of the
battle that they changed the name of Groce's
Retreat to San Jacinto. Texas Heritage, 21,
pp. 49, 139.
(62) Creighton, 4, p. 36.
(63) Visit, 23, p. 75.
(64) Bertleth, Rosa Groce, "Jared Ellison Groce,"
Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 20, 1916,
p. 360.
(65) Texas Governor's Mansion, 20, pp. 55 -56.
(66) Plummer, 16, p. 107.
(67) Williamson, 30. p. 9. /Schmitz, 19, p. 44. The
March 28, 1837, Telegraph & Texas Register,
tells that Blandon's Brasoria store is typical
with its "super fine and fancy clothing, sugar,
coffee, brandy, fruits, hats, bridles and
stirrups." But no nails. To get nails, one
must have had to go ula the river. A common
Texas expression in 1842 was: "If you put 10-
penny nails in the ground, you will have a crop
of iron beets." Hollon, 9, p. 287.
(68) Jordan, 11. Attached old photo shows (except
for the bay window) only one window to a wall
and no back porch.
(69) Abstract, 1, p. 34. The 1909 map of the
Philips League made by T. L. Henderson shows
Air -Line Road running through the Philips
Addition (Cavitt's Homestead) at the same angle
that the streets were laid out by Pease in
1871.
4L, (70) I lost the reference, but remember that in the
effort to oust steamboats, railroads stole the
name Air -Line from the steamer routes.
(71) Webb, 26, p. 775.
(72) Webb, 26, p. 775.
(73) Dietrich, 5, p. 76.
(74) Williamson, 30, p. 8.
(75) Dietrich, 5, p. 78.
(76) Creighton, 4, p. 28.
(77) Creighton, 4, p. 28.
(78) Wallis, 25, p. 271. "Houston marched his
little band to Groce's Crossing of the Brazos,
and Providence was to help him, for he found
there the only steamboat on the river, the
Yellowstone, which was up the river for
cotton." Up. the river was cotton area. Guy
Bryan came up the river to Washington-on-the -
Brazos, Marshall and Lucadia Pease came up the
river to Brazoria. Ug the river is 100 miles
from coastal Brazoria, from where, said
Clarence Wharton, one man walked 100 miles to
join Houston at Groce's Crossing. John
Lockhart tells that in 1853 the steamer
Magnolia was up at Washington and loaded with
cotton 3 miles east of Chappell Hill. Wallis,
25, p. 86.
(79) Personal correspondence with Ron Tyler,
Director, Texas State Historical Association,
July 24, 1991.
(80) When I was a student at the University of Texas
in the 1940's, I used the A & M Library for my
research, because it had more and better books
that the University Library at Austin.
(81) In those days, Genetics was the hardest course,
and E. P. Humbert, the Professor of Genetics,
told me that of the 3 best men in his classes,
Homer Rea was the best.
(82) The date for this was Christmas, 1942. Homer
Rea, Sr. and Carrie Bel Thomas were married in
Austin on June 7, 1925.
(83) Abstract 1, p. 33.
(84) Brazos County History, 2, p. 361.
(85) Abstract, 1, p. 16. On this document, Pease
puts his sea, "the seal being a scrawl."
(86) Smith, 18, p. 107. P. 158 lists Zeno Philips
as a pioneer of Brazos County, and p. 81 lists
his cotton partner John R. Harris as one. W.
G. Hill is also listed as one, and Hill Street
in the Philips Addition may be named for him.
(87) Abstract, 1, pp. 29 -32.
(88) Abstract, 1, pp. 29 -32.
(89) Abstract, 1, pp. 29 -32.
(90) Abstract, 1, p. 34.
(91) Dietrich, 5, p. 39.
(92) Abstract, 1, p. 17.
(93) Abstract, 1, p. 22.
(94) Abstract, 1, p. 23.
(95) Visit, 23, p. 222. "Austin acquired land,
first, by locating 5 league tracts, and
secondly, in the following manner. Settlers
who could not pay the $150 expense on a grant
- in advancing it for them, he had taken a
lease of the land for 99 years. He now has
about 70 leagues." Jared Croce had the next
most tracts, with 10 leagues, having to pay
taxes on 67,000 acres. Austin did not have to
pay taxes on the leased leagues.
(96) Plummer, 16, p. 81.
(97) Texas Governor's Mansion, 20, pp. 55 -56.
(98) Miller, 14, p. 98. Pease was elected Governor
in 1853 on a platform of railroads vs.
steamboats.
(99) Mitchell taught school in the canebrake on
Carter's land next to the Rector land that
Mitchell got A & M located on. In 1952,
someone told me that Bryan would move to
College. Since Bryan was 5 miles from College,
I thought this impossible. But it started
happening in the 1960's.
(100) Henry Hobhouse in Seeds of Change, New York,
Harper & Row, 1986, p. 225, says that the Irish
were and are motivated by hatred for Anglo-
Saxons and Anglo - Americans. Being Irish,
Mitchell had to be motivated by choosing an
anti -Pease location.
(101) Pease would have donated the land because of
his love for education. He would have liked
A & M to have been at Bryan what Baylor
University was at nearby Independence: a place
of scholars. The University of Texas professor
Frederich Eby, who taught Carrie Bel Thomas in
the 1920's and whose short recommendation of
her was "Get her if you can. ", wrote of the
Baylor Scholars: "Carey Crane had no peer as
an educator in the South and was first in
Texas. It is doubtful whether any man in Texas
ever surpassed him." Waco Baylor never
equalled Independence Baylor. Texas Heritage,
p. 145.
(102) Abstract, 1, pp. 29 -32.
(103) Austin: Its Architects & Architecture (1836-
1986), Austin - American Institute of Architects,
1986.
(104) Abstract, 1, p. 29 -32.
(105) Abstract, 1, p. 37. That 814 in the Cavitt
photo was owned by Columbus and Mary Gainer
Jones is one more reason why 810 was the E. M.
Pease house. Columbus P. Jones was born
February 4, 1843, and must be the son of B. C.
Jones, who witnessed the 1852 Pease to Patton
sale. Thus, Columbus Jones would want to buy
814, next to the house of his father's friend
Pease. I talked to his son Gainer Jones on the
telephone and after his death to his wife in
1968 at a Historic District meeting. She said
that the Jones Bridge is named for their
family, that when the old Jones Bridge house
burned down, the family moved to town and
bought 814, but that she and Gainer had built
their retirement home on the old Jones Bridge
location. She also told me that Gainer had the
largest collection of Civil War books in the
South, now with their son in Houston.
(106) Mrs. Richardson told me this and more on June
7, 1973.
(107) Abstract, 1, p. 45.
(108) 1973 conversation with Mrs. Richardson.
(109) 1973 conversation with Mrs. Richardson.
(110) Abstract, 1, p. 48.
(111) Sara Edna Wilkerson Holmgreen told me that her
parents bought the house. I have known her all
my life.
(112) Abstract, 1, p. 49.
(113) Abstract, 1, p. 50.
(114) Abstract, 1, p. 53.
(115) Abstract, 1, p. 55.
(116) Abstract, 1, p. 59.
(117) Abstract, 1, p. 63.
(118) 1973 conversation with Mrs. Richardson.
(119) Cofer, 3, pp. 49 -50. This reference is not
Observations of 1910, but Brief Sketches of
Staff Members. "Once about 1912 when a certain
young bachelor, whom Professor Smith, now in
his middle fifties and an old bachelor, had
taken under his protective wing, remarked on
seeing so pretty a visitor to the Old Shirley
dining hall, "Professor Smith, we could afford
to pay that girl's board to have her sit at our
table," Professor "Bobby" replied, "Well, we
will see what can be done about that. He did
see about it, for at the very next meal the
pretty young visitor from Mississippi and a
sister of a faculty wife boarding at the hotel,
was seated by Mrs. Neff, the manager of the
Shirley, just to the right of the young
bachelor and on the left of the old bachelor at
the head of the table. For the next two days
these three - the old bachelor, the young
bachelor, and the beauty from Mississippi -
with their sparking, light conversation and
with entertained Dean Charles Puryear, who
regularly sat at the table, and Chaplain
Alexander, another regular diner there. But
this was not the end of Professor Bobby's joke!
Two days later when the Shirley monthly board
bills came out that young bachelor found five
extra meals, two dollars and fifty cents, for
Miss H- added to his twenty dollars. This
young fellow, however, was quick- witted enough
to draw a red pencil line through the $2.50
charge and say to Mrs. A. J. Neff, the manager,
"Mrs. Neff, I should not object at all to
paying this part of my bill, but the lady might
object."
(120) Jordan, 11, p. 1.
Bibliography
1. Abstract of Title for Frederich A. Bunt to the Following
Tracts of Land in the W. R. Cavitt Sub - Division of the
Philips Addition to the City of Bryan, Brazos County, Texas.
Being Lots 5 and 6 in Block 10. Prepared March 29, 1938, by
W. T. MacDonald, Sr. In the possession of the Homer Reas
until March 23, 1992, when Joy Rea gave it to the A & M
College Archives.
2. Brazos County History, Bryan: Brazos County Heritage and
History Council, 1986.
3. Cofer, Brooks, D. Sr., Fragments of Early History of Texas A
& M College, College Station: Former Students, 1953.
4. Creighton, James, A Narrative History of Brazoria County,
Brazoria County Historical Commission, 1975.
5. Dietrich, W. O., The Blazing Story of Washington County,
Wichita Falls, Quanah Press, 1950, 1973.
6. Heritage Society of Austin, Historic Austin, Austin:
Heritage Society, 1981.
7. Holley, Mary Austin. Texas, A series of letters, Baltimore,
1883.
8. Holley, Mary Austin. Texas, Reproduction of 1836 ed.,
Austin; Stech Co., 1935.
9. Hollon, W. E. and Ruth Butler, William Bollaert's Texas,
Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1956.
10. Ikin, Arthur, Texas, James Day ed. of the 1841 ed., Waco:
Texian Press, 1964.
11. Jordan, Terry G., Log Cabin Village, Fort Worth: Tarrant
County Historical Society, 1980.
12. Kemp, L. W., The Signers of The Declaration of Independence,
Houston: 1944.
13. McBee, Sue Brandt, Austin, The Past Still Present, Austin:
Heritage Society, 1975.
14. Miller, Thomas Lloyd, The Public Lands of Texas, 1519 -1970,
Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1972.
15. Pease, Lucadia and Marshall and Juliet Niles, Pease Porridge
Hot, ed. by Katherine Hart, Waterloo Book 2, Austin: Encino
Press, 1967.
16. Plummer, Betty, Historic Homes of Washington County, 1821-
1860, San Marcos: Rio Fresco Books, 1971.
17. Ragsdale, Mrs. Charles, Brazos County Historical Tour,
Bryan: Wallace Printing Co., 1976.
18. Smith, W. Broadus, pioneers of Brazos County, Texas, 1800-
1850, Bryan: Scribe Shop, 1962.
19. Schmitz, Joseph William, Texas Culture, 1836 -1846, San
Antonio: Naylor Co.
20. Texas Governor's Mansion, Jean and Price Daniel, 1960.
Austin: The Texas State Library and Archives, 1984.
21. Texas Heritage, Vol. III, No. 1. A. Garland Adair, Austin:
Von Boeck Mann - Jones, Nov., 1961.
22. Thrall, Homer S., A Pictorial History of Texas, St. Louis:
1879.
23. Visit to Texas in 1831, anonymous. Facsimile Reproductions
of 1834 ed., Austin: Stech Co., 1952.
24. Van Bavel, M. Lips, Birth and Death of Booneville, Austin:
Nortex Press, 1986.
25. Wallis, Jonnie Lockhart, Sixty Years on the Brazos, The Life
and Letters of Dr. John Washington Lockhart, 1824 -1900.
Waco: Texian Press, 1967.
26. Webb, W. P. and H. B. Carroll, The Handbook of Texas, Vol. 1
(A -K), Vol. 2, (L -Z), Austin: Texas State Historical
Association, 1952.
27. Weniger, Del, The Explorer's Texas, Austin: Eakin Press,
1984.
28. Wharton, Clarence, "Early Judicial History of Texas ", Texas
Law Review, XII, April, 1934, pp. 311 -325.
29. White, Raymond, "The Texas Cotton Ginning Industry, 1866-
1900:, Texana, 5, No. 4 (Winter 1967), p. 346.
30. Williamson, Roxane Kuter, Austin, Texas, An American
Architectural History, San Antonio: Trinity University,
1973.
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outlined below will remain in effect. Copies of the bill are available from the
THC. Please contact the Division of Architecture if you have any questions
about how the new law affects your local preservation program.
RECORDED TEXAS HISTORIC LANDMARKS
1
The Recorded Texas Historic Landmark (RTHL) designation is
awarded to historic structures deemed worthy of preservation for their
architectural integrity and historical associations. Authorized by the Texas
Legislature under the Texas Government Code (Chapter 442), RTHL desig-
f nation is the highest honor the state can bestow on historic structures in Texas.
Properties so designated are afforded a measure of legal protection and
I become part of the recorded history of the state's built environment. In
conjunction with federal and local designations, RTHL status for a
community's historic structures can be an effective planning and preserva-
f tion tool.
1 . The RTHL designation process is administered as part of the THC's
f Local History Programs office; designation is conveyed by an Official Texas
Historical Marker and comes only through participation in the marker
process. The landmark status is denoted by any of the following:
* the Official Texas Historical Building Medallion
*the Official Texas Historical Building Medallion with accompanying
I C
interpretive plate
* an Official Texas Historical Subject Marker when the final line of the 1
inscription reads "Recorded Texas Historic Landmark"
CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION
•
1 In order to qualify for RTHL status, a structure must be at least 50 years
old and should retain its architectural integrity from a period of at least 50
years ago. The structure should be in a good state of repair and should be an
exemplary model of preservation. In no case can a structure be considered for
RTHL designation if it has been moved in the past 50 years or if artificial
(aluminum, asbestos, vinyl, etc.) siding has been applied to the exterior.
Structures should also reflect the appearance they exhibited during their
association with a significant person or event.
Recorded Texas Historic Landmark status can be attained for any
manner of historic structures, including but not limited to bridges, commer- i
cial buildings, churches, residences, and schoolhouses. Whether vernacular
or architect- designed, if the structure has retained integrity and if its history
can be documented and presented according to State Marker Policy guide-
lines, it is a likely candidate for designation. If you would like a preliminary 1
opinion on whether a particular property meets RTHL criteria, please send
snapshots of all sides to the THC, as well as a cover letter giving a brief history
of the building.
As mentioned earlier, designation comes only through participation
in the marker process. For additional information and guidelines, refer to
Chapter 6.
a