Biard Home

Duane's take

Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'm takin' it straight from the source. There's a house in Fannin County that has seen some company. Some very particular company.

Built in 1857 by a man named Z. K. Sims, who was in the business of hemp.

Not farming, mind you. Manufacturing. Z.

K. Sims ran a hemp factory, and whatever that operation put in his pockets, some of it went into four walls and a roof that would outlast just about everything around it. The house passed on, the way good houses do, and it landed in the hands of Thomas R.

Williams. Now Williams carries a title in this story: industrialist. And that word does some work, because Thomas R.

Williams wasn't just building his own fortunes. He was bringing people to Bonham. People worth knowing.

Dr. Charles Carlton came to Bonham through Williams, and Dr. Carlton is the man the marker names as the founder of Carlton College.

Colonel James Q. Chenoweth arrived in that same orbit, and Colonel Chenoweth was the first auditor of the United States Treasury. Let that settle for a second.

The first one. Then there were the judges. Judge James C.

Clark and Judge R. M. Lusk, both connected to this house, this man, this place.

You start to wonder what Thomas R. Williams was servin' at dinner. Whatever it was, the guest list was something.

Then in 1909, the Biard family took up residence, and the house has carried their name ever since. One house. Built by a hemp factory owner in 1857.

And it kept on collectin' history long after the first nail was driven.

What the marker says

Built 1857 by hemp factory owner Z. K. Sims. Later owned by Thomas R. Williams, industrialist who brought to Bonham Dr. Charles Carlton, founder of Carlton College; Col. James Q. Chenoweth, first auditor of the U.S. Treasury; Judges James C. Clark and R. M. Lusk. Biard residence since 1909. RTHL - 1964