Fry-Barry House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, the way I hear it out on the road. There's a house in Harrison County with a story layered like the structure itself, each owner leaving their mark on the wood and the walls. It goes like this.

W. R. D.

Ward owned the property, and in 1853 he sold it to a man named Fidel Bircher. Now Bircher didn't just buy the land, he put something on it worth remembering. He built a raised Greek revival style cottage, and he had Ward himself to thank for the design.

The man who sold him the ground also drew up the plans. That's the kind of detail that sticks with you. So there stands this cottage, Greek revival, raised up off the earth, carrying a certain dignity about it.

Then 1872 rolls around, and in walks Edwin James Fry. Fry was a Virginian by birth, born in 1845, but Texas had claimed him since 1855. He bought the residence and, with a growing family to think about, he enlarged it.

Not content to leave well enough alone, Fry made the place bigger, made it his. And he was more than just a man with a fine house. He was a leading businessman, a banker, a longtime Mason, and a member of Trinity Episcopal Church.

He carried himself with the kind of weight a community notices. Edwin James Fry lived until 1927. After he was gone, the home passed to his daughter Pamela and her husband, a banker himself, W.

L. Barry. Pamela carried her father's world into the next generation, living in those same rooms, under that same roof that Bircher built and Ward designed.

W. L. Barry died in 1942.

Pamela followed in 1961. And the house, that raised Greek revival cottage born out of a land sale between Ward and Bircher back in 1853, it's still standing. Three families deep, and every one of them left something behind in the walls.

What the marker says

Built by Fidel Bircher, this raised Greek revival style cottage was designed by W. R. D. Ward, who sold Bircher the property in 1853. Edwin James Fry (1845-1927), a native Virginian who came to Texas in 1855, bought the residence in 1872 and enlarged it to accommodate his growing family. A leading businessman and banker, Fry was a longtime Mason and member of Trinity Episcopal Church. After his death, his daughter Pamela (d. 1961) and her husband, banker W. L. Barry (d. 1942), occupied the home. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1962