The 75th Annual Jefferson Pigraimage clelbration kicks-oof this weekend with the following homes featured on the annual TOur of Homes:
The Beard House
212 Vale Street
This house was built about the year 1860 by Noble A. Birge and his wife, Anna Sophia Birge, in the style of a Greek Revival house with exterior trim and porch columns inspired by the interior grand salons of steamboats.
Mr. Birge was a prominent Jefferson citizen and businessman. He served the Confederacy during the Civil War, returned to Jefferson and became involved as a public officer and owner of a mercantile business, Birge and Nichols Hardware. He promoted steamboat and railroad transportation in Jefferson. In 1874, he moved to Sherman, Texas, where he created new businesses and developed neighborhoods.
In 1878, Birge sold the house to Anna Beard, who occupied the house until 1895. Since that time, it has been known as the Beard House. In 1899, the Beard House was acquired by M. E. Goetzman who owned the house until 1955 at which time the house was purchased by Estella May Fonville Peters who restored it and erected the iron and brick fence along Vale and Henderson streets. Mrs. Peters enclosed the covered porch which contains the house’s original water well. Mrs. Peters also restored the Excelsior Hotel in 1955 and included both the Beard House and Excelsior Hotel in the annual Jefferson Historical Pilgrimage tour of homes.
The Beard House was purchased in 1961 by Dr. Jesse M. DeWare III and Virginia Battle DeWare who made it a livable home for their four children and continued the restoration.
Built to last, the Beard House was constructed of hand-hewn cypress sills which were notched and pegged. The flooring is of fat-pine and the ceilings are 14-feet tall. The house features period furnishings, including an 1840 era plantation bed from the Fullilove Plantation on the Red River in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, and an American Empire full-tester acanthus leaf rope-bed from South Carolina. In addition, the Beard House contains an important collection of copper cooking utensils, and many fine heirlooms from the DeWare family and their ancestors, including Dr. R. E. Rowell, who came to Jefferson from Dadeville, Alabama in 1856 by wagon train.
It is interesting to note the Beard House was cited by the “Historical American Buildings Survey – The Catalogue of Measured Drawings and Photographs, March 1, 1945” as being worthy of preservation. This volume was compiled and edited by the Historical American Buildings Survey, U. S. Department of the Interior. The Beard House is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is a recorded Texas landmark.
In 2007, fifth generation Jefferson native, Bill DeWare and wife Becky DeWare became the owners of the Beard House and have continued its restoration and expansion. The DeWares are participants in many civic and cultural projects benefiting Jefferson.
The Homestead House
410 East Delta Street
The Homestead was originally built as an inn in 1851 by Bartholomew Figures. The inn was built in the section of Jefferson known as “Quality Hill,” being the highest point of the city. Bartholomew Figures was a personal friend of Sam Houston, so it is quite possible that he once stayed here.
Figures continued to run the hotel until 1864 when John C. Murphy purchased the Inn. The ell at the back of the home was added at that time. With nine bedrooms, the Inn was converted into a very fashionable boarding house and was once the center of social life in Jefferson. Many passing through Jefferson stayed in the Homestead including several traveling ministers, one of whom was Reverend Enoch Mather Marvin of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It is mentioned in his biography that in 1870 during the Trinity Convention being held in Jefferson, he stayed with his good friend John C Murphy in this very home, sitting and having conversation in the parlor. Many people came through the home for long and short stays. Another notable guest of the Homestead was the first Supreme Court Justice in Texas, the Honorable Nelson Phillips, said to have been born in the Homestead on May 3, 1873.
The Murphy family stayed in the home until 1919 when they sold it to the Dannelly Family. For more than ninety years, the Dannellys lived in and shared the beauty of their home until 2010 when Elizabeth Dannelly passed away. Elizabeth Dannelly, a prominent Jeffersonian and member of the Jessie Allen Wise Garden Club, lived in the home for more than seventy of those years. The heirs of the Dannellys wanted to sell the home to a couple who would love the home as much as they did and continue to share it with friends, family and the community. In 2013, the Dannellys’ desire came to reality when Allen and Pauline Conley purchased the home, becoming the fourth owner in its over 170-year history.
A special addition to the home is a full-size mural in the grand hall painted by the Conley’s daughter, Carrie Estridge. Mrs. Conley has spent several years making the Homestead her home, adding furnishings that accentuate the period of the house and adding colors that bring new life to its halls and a joy to all who enter the front doors.
The Conley family welcomes you to tour their home during this 75th Diamond Jubilee Pilgrimage.
Singleton’s Virginia Cross Home
401 North Soda Street
The Singleton home, built in 1859 by Buckner Abernathy, is a Greek Revival home located in the older portion of Jefferson close to the Jefferson Historic District and at the corner of Soda and Orleans Streets.
In its early history, the house changed hands many times, being owned by Buckner Abernathy, B. J. Terry and George McFarlane. As an engineer for the M, K & T Railroad, Mr. McFarlane was the first railroad engineer to run a train from Jefferson to New Orleans. In 1885, Capt. W.E. Singleton purchased the home. Capt. Singleton served as an officer in the Confederate Army and participated in the battles of Booneville, Carthage, Wilson Creek and Pea Ridge. After the war, Capt. Singleton became a prominent citizen in Marshall, where he held numerous public positions. After moving to Jefferson, he was appointed custodian of public buildings. The Singleton family maintained ownership of the home for 100 years. In 1926, Capt. Singleton’s granddaughter, Ellie Mae Singleton (Mrs. Bennie) Moseley inherited the home and lived in it until 1985.
The home is an excellent example of early Texas Greek Revival architecture that was patterned after 18th Century Virginia houses of the cross plan, hence the sobriquet “Virginia Cross.” The Singleton’s distyle front portico with a gabled pediment and second floor balcony supported by classical columns is the only such example in Jefferson. Inside of the home, there is a large central hallway with pairs of doors at the front and back that provided cross ventilation in early times. The front portion of the home is two-story in height with the second floor accessed by a stair in the Central Hall. When the home is viewed in plan, the projecting front portico, central hall and front rooms form a cruciform shape or plan.
The Virginia Cross is constructed of Cypress lumber and the exterior walls are covered with Cypress clapboards. All of the floors are original wide plank, pine floors. The Parlor and Central Hall are decorated with period wallpaper. This significant example of antebellum architecture was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1966 and was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. In 1966, the National Park Service made measured drawings of the home and filed them in the Historic American Building Survey in the Library of Congress. The Texas Historical Building Medallion and Interpretive Plate displayed on the home signifies that the structure is worthy of preservation.
In 1989, the home was completely restored to its current condition. The present owners, Mary and Weldon Nash, have furnished the home with American Empire and Renaissance Revival antique furniture in keeping with the 1860-1870 time periods.
The House of the Seasons
409 South Alley Street
Colonel Benjamin Holland Epperson, a prominent lawyer, political leader,
entrepreneur and confident of Sam Houston, was born in Mississippi in 1826 and
came to Texas in 1847. He eventually made his way to Jefferson and built the House of the Seasons in 1872 as a home for his family. The home is one of the most imposing structures in Jefferson. A three-story example of the transitional period between Greek Revival and Victorian architectural styles, the home takes its name from the large stained-glass panels in the cupola where each color depicts a season of the year. Another interesting interior design is the dome, which features beautiful murals. The
dome can be viewed through a well-like opening in the ceiling of the first floor.
The home contains lovely examples of furniture of the 1870s. Many of the furniture pieces were purchased from Benjamin Epperson’s daughter, Jeannie, in 1974 when the house went under major restoration.
After his death, Benjamin Epperson sold the house in 1906 to Marion Taylor
Glass a farmer and grocer. Dr. and Mrs. Walter S. McNutt bought the house from the heirs of the Glass family in 1941. Dr. McNutt established Four Seasons Cooperative University and Jefferson College, conducting classes in the two front parlors and on the front porch of the home.
The original architect of the house was probably Arthur Gillman of New York City and Boston. The restoration architect was Wayne Bell of Austin, and the interior designer was Dr. Anna Brightman, dean of the School of Interior Design at the University
of Texas in Austin.
The home is a Recorded Texas Landmark, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is recorded in the Historic American Building Survey in the Library of Congress.
Current owner of the home is the Calvert K. Collins Foundation.