Architecture
The Wood-Hughes House
W. A. Wood (1851-1909) and his wife Fannie (Wheeler) built this house in 1897. A lumber yard owner, Wood used fine materials--oak, heart pine, Louisiana cypress--and had siding milled to simulate cut stone. This is an excellent example of late Victorian residential architecture. Home was sold 1913 to planter-rancher Henry W.
History
Thomas Affleck
Born and educated in Scotland, Thomas Affleck (1812-1868) emigrated in 1832 to the United States, where he became one of the most well-known agriculturalists of his time. A prolific writer, Affleck was associated with several agricultural and horticultural publications.
History
Thomas Deye Owings
Thomas Deye Owings was born to John Cockey and Colegate Dye Owings on March 7, 1776 at Cockeysville, a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. The family had met with success as colonial tobacco planters and as partners in the Bourbon Iron Furnace in Kentucky.
History
Union Hill
The Hugh and Lucy Kerr family from Tennessee started the Kerr settlement in this area in 1831. W. B. McClellan (1804-80) from North Carolina bought land from W. P. Kerr in 1844 and began a second settlement. Union Academy was operating by 1850. Union Hill Post Office opened in 1854. Mrs. Lucy Kerr gave acreage at this point for a Methodist church; Masonic lodge and school soon shared the site.
Architecture
W. W. Browning House
A native of South Carolina, William Westcoat Browning (1808-1871) moved to Texas in the 1850s with his wife, Elizabeth (Gilmer), and their children. This Greek Revival plantation home was built for them in 1856-58. The house is a fine example of the architectural style brought by early Texas planters from their former homes in the southern states.
History
Washington County
To the memory of those courageous souls, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention held here March 1-17, 1836 who declared Texas free, organized a Republic, and framed its constitution Jessie B. Badgett; Dr. George Washington Barnett; Thomas Barnett; Stephen William Blount; John White Bower; Asa Brigham; Andrew Briscoe; John Wheeler Bunton; John S.D.
Architecture
Washington County Courthouse
Built in 1940 with funds granted by the Public Works Administration. This is the fourth courthouse to serve Washington County since its formation in 1835. Constructed during the tenure of County Judge Sam Low, the massive white limestone courthouse was designed in the art moderne style. Details of that style include the light fixtures and cast aluminum eagles at the entries.
History
Washington County State Bank
James S. Giddings (1849-1940) was the principal organizer of this financial institution, which was established as the result of the creation of a state banking system in 1905. The official date set by the Legislature for filing bank charters was August 13, 1905. Since that date fell on a Sunday, the first charters were filed in Austin on August 14th.
History
Washington County, C.S.A.
Washington County was the most populous in the state during the Civil War. It served as a center for production, warehousing, transportation and communications, and had a large quartermaster depot. Local wartime factories made spinning jennies, lumber, pots, kettles, wagons and army ambulances. Government cotton was held in Brenham, one of four state depots.
History
Washington-on-the-Brazos
This village -- site of the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence and first capital of the Republic of Texas -- began in 1822 as a ferry crossing. Here the historic La Bahia Road (now Ferry Street) spanned the Brazos River. In 1834 a townsite was laid out and named, probably for Washington, Georgia, home of a leading settler.
Military
Waul's Texas Legion Campsite
In the spring of 1862 Thomas N. Waul (1813-1903) recruited men from Washington and the surrounding counties to form a legion for Confederate service. Composed of twelve infantry companies, six cavalry companies, and two artillery companies, the legion numbered some two thousand soldiers. The organizational and training encampment of Waul's Texas Legion was located here along New Year's Creek.
Architecture
Waverly
(1850) Antebellum home built by William Leigh Tunstall, a practicing physician 1850-54. Also home of Col. William M. Sledge 1854-60. Sledge built railroad to Chappell Hill and mortgaged his cotton crop 1856 to build bridge over Brazos. Greek Revival architecture; arched cornices; hand hewn cedar sills; native stone.
History
William Jones E. Heard
Born in Tennessee in 1803; died at Chappell Hill August 8, 1874; captain of Company F, 1st Regiment of Texas; volunteer at San Jacinto. Erected by the State of Texas
Architecture
Wittbecker-Weiss House
Home builder and lumber company owner Frank Wood built this house in 1895 and later that year sold it to bakery owners H. G. and Annie Wittbecker. A late 19th-century L-plan Victorian dwelling, the house features fan-shaped porch brackets, wood shingled gable ends, decorative bargeboards, heavily embellished corner brackets on the front gable, and turned-wood columns.
Elsewhere in Texas
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
