DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells this one, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Now, some houses are just houses. Four walls, a roof, a place to hang your hat.
But some houses hold on — to the land, to the family, to the story. The Isham Davis Home, out in Grimes County, is that second kind. Built in 1848, this place went up with hand-hewn cedar worked right into the log foundation, the ceilings, the beams.
Somebody put real labor into that wood — shaped it by hand, set it in place, and built something meant to last. And last it did. For one hundred and fifteen years, that home stayed in the family of Isham D.
Davis. One hundred and fifteen years. Think about how much Texas changed around those walls while the Davis family held steady inside them.
But here's where the story reaches back even further. Isham Davis's wife, Martha, was the daughter of Mathew Caldwell — one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. That's the kind of lineage that has a little weight to it.
The hands that signed Texas into being were the same hands that raised the woman who made that house a home. The wood is hand-hewn. The roots go deep.
And that house has been standing there in Grimes County long enough to prove it.
What the marker says
Built 1848. Has hand-hewn cedar in log foundation, ceilings and beams. For 115 years in family of Isham D. Davis, whose wife, Martha, was a daughter of Mathew Caldwell, one of the signers of Texas Declaration of Independence. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1965