R. B. S. Foster Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm going to give it to you straight. Way out in Grimes County, there stands a house that carries more than a century of Texas living in its walls. And I mean that almost literally.

Malcolm Camp, a wealthy cotton planter, built this structure back in 1859. Now Camp didn't cut corners. He hauled his lumber all the way from East Texas sawmills, and when he put up those walls, he put up rooms with ceilings so high you'd feel like you were standing inside a church.

The style wasn't what you'd call frontier rough. It came from the architectural tradition of the Atlantic states, something formal and deliberate planted right here in Texas soil. And down below, carved into the earth, was a formal dining room lined in sandstone.

That cellar dining room was, as the marker puts it, unique. There was also a detached kitchen, which was its own kind of practical wisdom. This was a plantation home built to last, and last it would.

Then in 1883, a leading local citizen by the name of R.B.S. Foster purchased the place. Foster was born in 1848 and died in 1889, and in the years between, this house became the birthplace of his three children.

Georgia. Robert F. And Nettie Rose.

Three names the old walls knew well. Now here's the part that really makes you stop and think. After Foster, the home stayed in the hands of Fosters or their agents, continuously occupied, all the way until 1966.

From Malcolm Camp's lumber hauled out of East Texas to nearly the modern age, somebody was always home. That's not just a house. That's a through line.

What the marker says

Early Texas plantation home in architectural style of the Atlantic states. Malcolm Camp, wealthy cotton planter, built this structure in 1859, with lumber hauled from East Texas sawmills. High-ceilinged rooms are very large. Formal dining room in sandstone-lined cellar was unique. Had detached kitchen. Purchased 1883 by a leading local citizen, R.B.S. Foster (1848-1889), this was birthplace of his three children-- Georgia, Robert F. and Nettie Rose. So stable is this locality that home was continuously occupied until 1966 by Fosters or their agents.