DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and it's one worth slowing down for. We're talking about a stretch of the Nueces River's east bank in Live Oak County, a place called The Point at Echo — and the house that stood there carried more history than its modest frame walls might have suggested. Patrick Frances Murphy, San Patricio Chief Justice, and his wife Elizabeth Mary Catherine — daughter of Empresario James McGloin — purchased The Point at Echo in 1875.
They built themselves a story-and-a-half Greek Revival frame house, modest by design but deliberate in every detail. That cypress wood framing the place? It didn't come easy.
It was imported cypress, carted all the way from Indianola by oxen. You think about that next time you complain about a delivery delay. Now, Patrick eventually sold the Echo property, and here's where the story takes a turn that nobody saw coming.
The buyer was Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy — widow of Patrick's own brother, Attorney John Bernard Murphy, who had died in 1884 while serving as mayor of Corpus Christi. So the ranch stayed in the family, in a manner of speaking. But what Margaret Mary did with it — that's the part that earns this place its marker.
She built Saint Peter Claver's Church campus in San Antonio with private funds. Not just a church — a convent and a free school for Black children. Then she founded the first order of nuns in Texas.
And through all of it, that modest ranch house on the Nueces served as a place for retreats and training. To sustain the mission she had built her life around, she sold the ranch before her death in 1907. A woman who took a cypress-framed house on a river bend and used it as the quiet engine behind something that changed Texas forever.
What the marker says
San Patricio Chief Justice, Patrick Frances Murphy and wife, Elizabeth Mary Catherine, daughter of Empresario, James McGloin, puchased The Point at Echo in 1875. They built this Modest Greek Revival Story and a half frame house on their Nueces River's east bank ranch with imported cypress carted from Indianola by oxen. Patrick sold the Echo property to Margaret Mary Healy-Murphy, widow of his brother, Attorney John Bernard Murphy, who died in 1884 while mayor of Corpus Christi. Margaret Mary built Saint Peter Claver's Church campus in San Antonio with private funds, including convent and free school for black children. She then founded the first order of nuns in Texas using the Murphy Ranch House for retreats and training. To sustain the Mission, she sold the Ranch before her death in 1907. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2015