Home of Chas. Stillman

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passin' it right along to you. There's a house sitting in Brownsville, Cameron County, that carries a whole lot of Texas history inside its walls. It belonged to a man named Chas.

Stillman. Ship owner. Merchant.

Rancher. The kind of man who showed up early and got to work. He came to Brazos Santiago in 1828, which means he was planting roots in this corner of the world long before most people were paying attention to it.

Then, in 1849 and 1850, he founded the City of Brownsville, right there on land that had once been part of the old Espiritu Santo Land Grant. That's the ground this story stands on. Now, around 1850, Stillman built this house.

And he didn't build it for himself alone. He built it for his bride, Elizabeth Goodrich, who came all the way from Connecticut. Think about that for a moment.

Connecticut to the southernmost tip of Texas, to a city that had barely just been called a city. The house he gave her was built in the style of the time, what folks would recognize as pre-Civil War architecture at its most considered. There's a separate kitchen, the kind kept apart from the main house for reasons any Texan summer would make plain.

There are cisterns. A carriage house. A patio.

Every element thought through, every detail intentional. The whole place tells you something about the man who built it and the woman he built it for. A ship owner, a merchant, a rancher, arriving on these shores in 1828, and leaving behind, among everything else, a home that still stands to remind you he was here.

What the marker says

Home of Chas. Stillman, ship owner, merchant, rancher, who came to Brazos Santiago in 1828 and in 1849-50 founded City of Brownsville in old Espiritu Santo Land Grant. Built about 1850 for his bride, Elizabeth Goodrich, of Connecticut. Has separate kitchen, cisterns, carriage house, patio typical of pre-Civil War architecture. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1964