Old Dougherty House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Somewhere out on the San Patricio County landscape, there's a site with a story that begins on the far side of an ocean and ends with a schoolhouse on the edge of Round Lake. The marker calls it the Old Dougherty House, and that name alone carries a whole curriculum inside it.

Robert Dougherty was born in 1827, and the Ireland he grew up in was the Ireland of the 1840s famine, one of the great catastrophes of that century. He came out of it a refugee, which is a word that carries weight no matter what era you say it in. But here's the thing about Robert Dougherty: he did not arrive empty-handed.

He had been educated at St. Mary's College in Kentucky, and he had put that education to work as a journalist and as a merchant before Texas finally got hold of him. He settled here, married a woman named Rachel Sullivan, and that connection to her family would matter later.

Before he built anything of his own, he served as principal of Hidalgo Seminary in Corpus Christi, a post he held from 1867 to 1874. Then in 1876, he built his school right here on Round Lake, near his wife's people, and he called it St. Paul's Academy for Boys.

Now, what Robert Dougherty taught inside those walls was not what you'd find on every frontier. Geography, history, mathematics, Latin, Greek, classical literature, and Gaelic. The marker itself notes those were subjects rare in that era, and you can believe it.

A man who survived a famine, crossed an ocean, worked as a journalist and a merchant, and then planted Greek and Gaelic on the Texas coastal plain, that is a particular kind of stubborn. He died in 1881. But before he did, he and Rachel raised seven children, and every single one of those seven children began their careers as teachers.

You don't have to read between the lines on that. The man built a school, and the school came home with him every night.

What the marker says

Location of noted St. Paul's Academy for Boys. Home of school owner Robert Dougherty (1827-1881), a refugee from 1840s Irish famine. Educated at St. Mary's College, Kentucky, Dougherty worked as a journalist and merchant before settling in Texas, here marrying Rachel Sullivan. In 1867-1874, he was principal, Hidalgo Seminary, Corpus Christi. Built his school here on Round Lake, near wife's family, 1876. He taught geography, history, mathematics, Latin, Greek, classical literature and Gaelic--subjects rare in that era. His seven children all began their careers as teachers. (1970)