Andrew F. Smyth Home

Duane's take

Here's my tellin' of what the official marker has to say about this place. Now, when folks talk about buildin' a home in East Texas in 1849, they're not talkin' about callin' up a contractor and pickin' out countertops. They are talkin' about startin' from the ground up, in every sense of the phrase.

And Andrew F. Smyth knew that better than most. The man was a riverman and a farmer, which is about as capable a combination as you can find in that part of the world.

He knew how to read water and he knew how to work land, and in 1849, he put both of those skills to use and built himself a home. Now here's the part worth pausin' on. The lumber wasn't hauled in from somewhere else.

It was milled right there, on site. That means Smyth didn't just build the house. He was part of producing the very material that house was made of.

But a man can only do so much with what the land gives him. For the glass and the hardware, he reached out to Galveston. Think about what that meant in 1849.

Galveston was the connection to the wider world, and Smyth made that connection work for him. So you've got lumber from the site, glass and hardware from Galveston, and one riverman-farmer who had the vision and the grit to bring it all together. That house didn't just happen.

Andrew F. Smyth built it.

What the marker says

Built 1849 by Andrew F. Smyth, riverman and farmer. Lumber milled on site. Glass and hardware from Galveston. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965