DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. There's a log house standing in Montgomery County that carries a story all the way back to Ireland, across an ocean, and into the piney woods of early Texas. The man behind it was James Jordan, also written down as Jardine, depending on who was doing the spelling.
He was born in Ireland, somewhere around 1790, and by 1826 he had made his way to Texas as part of Jose Vehlein's colony. Think about that for a second. A man from Ireland, planting roots in Mexican Texas, under a land grant from a government that wouldn't even exist in its current form much longer.
That's a particular kind of bold. Around 1830, Jordan took that land he'd obtained from the Mexican government, land sitting in what we now call Walker County, and he built himself a cabin. He didn't order anything from a catalog.
He hewed the pine logs by hand and joined them together using half dovetail notching, the kind of joinery that locks wood to wood like a handshake that refuses to let go. The chimney wasn't stone. It was mud and sticks, fashioned just so, doing the work a chimney has to do.
Now, a house like that, left where the years find it, doesn't always survive. But in 1976, Mr. and Mrs. B.
Carroll Tharp made sure this one would. They moved the house to this very site and restored it. A cabin born around 1830, carried carefully into a new place, still standing.
James Jordan, or Jardine, take your pick, built something that outlasted almost everything else from his time. That's not nothing. That's the whole point.
What the marker says
Born in Ireland about 1790, James Jordan (also spelled "Jardine") came to Texas in 1826 as part of Jose Vehlein's colony. He built this cabin about 1830 on land obtained from the Mexican government in present Walker County. The hand-hewn pine logs were joined by half dovetail notching, and the chimney was fashioned of mud and sticks. In 1976 Mr. and Mrs. B. Carroll Tharp moved the house to this site and restored it. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1977