James House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the James House in Kendall County. Now settle in, because this one's got layers. We're talkin' about a two-story limestone house, the kind that looks like it was built to outlast everybody who ever walked through its door.

And it very nearly has. The marker says it's believed to have been built about 1880, by a man named Ives Brown, and he built it for a couple named Ichabod and Alice Kingsbury. Ichabod and Alice Kingsbury.

Say those names out loud sometime. They've got a ring to them, like characters out of a novel someone left half-finished on a porch swing. But the house doesn't carry their name.

No, the house belongs to someone who came later, and her story is something else entirely. In 1925, the property was purchased by Maria James, born in 1859, gone in 1940, and known to history as a pioneer surveyor and early community leader. Maria James platted the town of Boerne.

In 1852. Let that sit for a second. She platted an entire town.

And then, decades on, she bought herself a limestone house and gave it a name. She called it Puccoon. Named for her ancestral home in Hanover County, Virginia.

There's something in that, a woman who helped shape a Texas town reaching back across her whole life to carry a Virginia name forward, pressing it into the stone and mortar of a place she intended to keep. And keep it she did. Following her death, the residence remained in her family.

The house stands yet. Still limestone, still two stories, still carrying the name she gave it.

What the marker says

This two-story limestone house is believed to have been built about 1880 by Ives Brown for Ichabod and Alice Kingsbury. In 1925 it was purchased by Maria (Williams) James (1859-1940), the pioneer surveyor and early community leader who platted the town of Boerne in 1852. Named "Puccoon" by Maria for her ancestral home in Hanover County, Virginia, the residence remained in her family following her death. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982