Camp-Ezell House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture this. Somewhere along a Texas creek, there stands a house built from wood that had already lived one life before it ever became a home.

A settler's box home, they call it, put together from Florida longleaf pine salvaged from a structure Robert A. Ezell razed over in Old St. Mary's.

That lumber had a past, and Ezell gave it a future. He built at this creek site in 1892, and the man knew what he was doing. Ezell was a stonemason by trade, born in 1845, and he lived all the way to 1936.

When a stonemason builds you a house, you can bet the details are something. Three chimneys on this place, and one of them pulling double duty, serving as the flue for two cooking units at the same time: the kitchen stove on one side and the dining room fireplace on the other. One chimney, two fires.

Efficient, and just a little bit proud of itself. Now, the woman who kept that kitchen was no ordinary settler's wife. Sara Jane Camp Ezell was the daughter of L.B.

Camp, an influential legislator, and she was born at Mission San Jose, right there in San Antonio. She came from somewhere, is what I'm saying. And together, Robert and Sara Jane raised six sons in that longleaf pine house by the creek.

Six boys. And what did those six Ezell sons do? They formed an orchestra.

A popular one, too, that kept folks dancing and listening from 1895 all the way to 1904. One stonemason, one legislator's daughter, one house built from borrowed lumber, and six boys who filled the Texas air with music. That creek didn't just have a house sitting beside it.

It had a whole story.

What the marker says

A settler's "box" home built of Florida longleaf pine from house razed by Robert A. Ezell in Old St. Mary's. One of the structure's three chimneys served as a flue for two cooking units: kitchen stove and dining room fireplace. Ezell (1845-1936), a stonemason, built at this creek site in 1892. His wife Sara Jane, daughter of influential legislator L.B. Camp, was born at Mission San Jose, San Antonio. Six Ezell sons formed a popular orchestra, 1895 to 1904. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1971