DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it straight along to you. Way back before Cedar Hill was much more than a patch of Texas promise, a man came down from North Carolina and decided this was where he'd plant himself. Dr.
R. A. Roberts arrived in Cedar Hill in 1859, and friend, he arrived to stay.
Born in 1837, he had a long road ahead of him, though he couldn't have known just how long, or how much of it would wind through history. When the Civil War came calling, Roberts answered as a Confederate Army surgeon. He did what surgeons do in wartime, which is more than most of us would care to imagine, and then when it was over, he came back.
Back to this area, back to the work of healing, back to building something. And build he did. He became a prominent physician; the kind of doctor a community leans on, and if that weren't enough, he helped bring the Grand Central and Santa Fe Railroad line through Cedar Hill.
A railroad, now. That's not a small thing. That's iron and ambition laid down across the earth.
Then in 1884, Dr. Roberts built this house. A home for his family, done up in the late Victorian style, with jig-sawn work on the porch and stick style brackets holding up that second-story gable.
Every detail was deliberate. A man who had seen the wreckage of war and come out the other side building things; a practice, a railroad, a house; he knew exactly what he was doing. Dr.
R. A. Roberts lived until 1906, and that house is still standing.
Some things, built right, just endure.
What the marker says
A native of North Carolina, Dr. R. A. Roberts (1837 - 1906) settled in Cedar Hill in 1859. After serving as a Confederate Army surgeon he returned to this area, where he became a prominent physician and helped bring the Grand Central and Santa Fe Railroad line through Cedar Hill. Roberts built this home for his family in 1884. The late Victorian style house features jig-sawn work on the porch and stick style brackets that support the second-story gable. RTHL 1984