DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
Here's how the marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. In the early 1890s, somewhere in Mansfield, Texas, a man named Joseph Nugent set out to build himself a house. And not just any house: one dressed up with late nineteenth-century Victorian and Eastlake details right there on the porch.
The kind of porch that makes you slow down when you drive past it, even now. Joseph Nugent built that house alongside his wife, Christina, and together they put something lasting into the world. Now, Nugent had come a long way to get there.
Born in 1829, a native of Canada, he made his way to Texas all the way back in 1851. That's a long road, in every sense of the word. He settled into Mansfield and got to work; operating a private school there in the 1850s, then teaching at the Mansfield Male and Female College.
The man had a thing for educating people, and Mansfield had a thing for Joseph Nugent. So much so that in 1891, the town elected him its very first mayor. First one.
Ever. You don't get to be the first mayor of a town without leaving a mark. Nugent lived in that Victorian house until he passed in 1903.
After that, the story shifted. In 1920, a local farmer by the name of J.H. Hart bought the home, and from there it passed on; inherited by family members, generation to generation.
The house that Joseph and Christina Nugent built in the early 1890s just kept standing, kept holding people, kept showing off those Eastlake porch details to anyone who cared to look. Some things in Texas, friend, they outlast everything. This is one of them.
What the marker says
In the early 1890s Joseph Nugent (1829-1903) and his wife, Christina, built this house, which features late 19th-century Victorian and Eastlake details in the porch. Nugent, a native of Canada, came to Texas in 1851. He operated a private school in Mansfield in the 1850s, taught at the Mansfield Male and Female College,and was elected the first mayor in 1891. Local farmer J.H. Hart bought the home in 1920, and it was later inherited by family members. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1985