McCroskey-Stringfellow House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. You're looking at the McCroskey-Stringfellow House, out in Brazoria County, and this place has had more lives than a barn cat. It starts, as so many Texas stories do, at the very beginning.

John McCroskey was a tanner by trade, and he came to Texas as part of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred. That's the founding company, the original colonists, the ones who showed up before Texas was anything but a promise and a land grant.

McCroskey's grant came through in 1824, and the terms were clear: build a home. So he did. Right here.

Now, the structure got remodeled by later owners, so don't go looking for the raw frontier in every board, but the bones of that original obligation are still standing. Then consider who came through next. Oliver Jones owned the place in 1849 to 1850, and Jones was no ordinary landowner.

He was chairman of a commission to design the flag and the seal of the Republic of Texas. Think about that. The man who helped decide what Texas would look like, sitting on this very property.

After Jones, Robert J. Townes moved in, 1850 to 1852. Townes was a Brazoria County district judge, and he'd go on to serve as a state legislator.

This house was keeping serious company. Then came Asa Stratton, and under Stratton the whole character of the place shifted. It became a sugar and cotton plantation.

The land was put to work in a hard and particular way that defined so much of this region's history. The story could've ended there, the house slowly giving way to time and neglect the way so many plantation-era structures did. But it didn't.

In 1945, Nannie Stringfellow, born Maddox, she purchased the property. And she preserved it. She kept it standing until her death in 1971.

A tanner's obligation, a republic's symbols, a judge's residence, a plantation's harvest, and one woman's determination to make sure none of it disappeared. That's what this house is holding.

What the marker says

A tanner, John McCroskey came to Texas with Stephen F. Austin's "Old 300". He built this home in compliance with the terms of his 1824 land grant. Later owners remodeled the structure. Oliver Jones, the owner in 1849-50, was chairman of a commission to design the flag and seal of the Republic of Texas. Robert J. Townes, a Brazoria County district judge and later state legislator, lived here 1850-52. The property became a sugar and cotton plantation during Asa Stratton's ownership. Nannie (Maddox) Stringfellow (d. 1971) purchased the property in 1945 and preserved the dwelling. (1980)