Hodge-Taylor House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Hodge-Taylor House in Marion County. Berry and Lavenia Hodge, she born a Boggs, made a long journey out of Kentucky and chose this stretch of Texas to call home. In 1852, they had a house built right along the Daingerfield Road, and when you see what they put up, you understand they were not thinking small.

Greek Revival all the way, classically proportioned, cypress on the outside standing up to every season Texas could throw at it. A prominent portico out front. Interior chimneys.

Large rooms on either side of a central passageway. This was a house that announced itself. Berry and Lavenia raised five children inside those walls, and that is where the story gets heavy for a moment, because you have to reckon with what this family gave to a war.

Their son Robert Blount rode with the 3rd Texas Cavalry, C.S.A., and he died from wounds in the Battle of Atlanta in 1864. One of five children. Gone in Georgia while the cypress walls of home still stood on the Daingerfield Road.

Berry Hodge was a prominent landowner and a surveyor, a man who knew this land by measure, and at some point he sold the property to D.W.H. Taylor, businessman and publisher of the Jefferson Jimplecute. That name, the Jimplecute, a Jefferson newspaper with some real personality in its title.

The house passed on, as houses do, and the years did what years do. But in the 1950s, T.J. Taylor, Jr. stepped in and restored the residence, making sure those large rooms and that portico and those interior chimneys would keep their dignity.

What Berry and Lavenia started in 1852 is still standing. Some houses just refuse to let go.

What the marker says

Berry and Lavenia (Boggs) Hodge moved here from Kentucky and had this house built along the Daingerfield Road in 1852. Among their five children, son Robert Blount, of the 3rd Texas Cavalry, C.S.A., died from wounds in the Battle of Atlanta in 1864. Hodge, a prominent landowner and surveyor, sold the property to D.W.H. Taylor, businessman and publisher of the Jefferson Jimplecute. T.J. Taylor, Jr. restored the residence in the 1950s. The classically proportioned Greek Revival style home features a cypress exterior, a prominent portico, interior chimneys and large rooms flanking a central passageway. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964