DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Picture the Hill Country, 1847, and a young priest fresh off the boat from Lyons, France — Father Claude M. Dubuis — setting about building something permanent in a brand-new colony on the Texas frontier.
Castro's colony, they called it, and Dubuis was its first priest. He wasn't working alone, at least not at the start. Father Chazelle was there alongside him, the two of them raising what would become the original two rooms of the Dubuis House.
But here's where the story takes its first dark turn — Chazelle soon died of typhus. Just like that, Dubuis was on his own. Now, some men might've packed it in.
Not this one. The same year those walls went up — 1847 — Father Dubuis was captured by Comanches. And then, as if once wasn't enough to make the point, captured again.
Twice, in the same year. Both times, he escaped unharmed. I'll let that settle for a moment.
Twice. The house itself was no small thing either. It replaced a picket hut — which tells you something about the conditions Dubuis was working in when he first arrived.
And what he built in its place became the first example of French-Alsatian architecture in Castroville. The very first. As for Father Dubuis himself — the man who survived typhus losses, two Comanche captures, and a frontier that had no intention of making things easy — he later became Bishop of Texas.
The two rooms still standing are the ones he built.
What the marker says
The two original rooms in this house were erected 1847 by Father Claude M. Dubuis, from Lyons, France, aided by Father Chazelle (who soon died of typhus). Father Dubuis, the first priest in Castro's colony, was captured twice by Comanches in 1847, but escaped unharmed. He later was Bishop of Texas. This house replaced a picket hut. It was first example of French-Alsatian architecture in Castroville. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966