DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the voice along for the ride. The Huling Cottage in Lampasas County — built somewhere between 1860 and 1872, native limestone and cedar, dressed up in New England colonial architecture right here in the heart of Texas. Already that's a story worth pullin' over for.
But the building is just the frame. The real story is the woman who bought it. In 1872, Mrs.
Elizabeth Bullock Smith Huling paid three thousand dollars in gold for this place. Three thousand. In gold.
That's not a transaction — that's a statement. Now, to understand what that means, you have to go back. Way back.
To 1836, when Elizabeth was an orphan from Kentucky, caught up in one of the most desperate chapters in Texas history — the Runaway Scrape. Santa Anna's army was moving, and Texas families were moving faster, fleeing toward the Sabine River just ahead of it. A frightened column of people, children among them, orphans among them, and Elizabeth was one of those children in that group, runnin' for their lives.
She survived it. She came out the other side. Her husband, Thomas B.
Huling, born in 1805, was in that revolution himself. He would go on to serve as a Republic of Texas Congressman before he passed in 1865. And Elizabeth — that girl who once fled with nothing but her life — she would one day walk up to a limestone and cedar house in Lampasas County and lay down three thousand dollars in gold.
Some people just have a way of outrunning whatever chases them.
What the marker says
Built 1860-1872. Native limestone and cedar. New England colonial architecture. Bought 1872 for $3,000 in gold by Mrs. Elizabeth Bullock Smith Huling, who as an orphan from Kentucky was in the group of Texas families fleeing toward the Sabine River just ahead of Santa Anna's army in the 1836 "Runaway Scrape". Her husband, Thomas B. Huling (1805-1865), was in the revolution, and was later a Republic of Texas Congressman.