DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and this one's got a hurricane, a sea captain, and a house that just refused to die. Now, you have to start with the lumber. Because that's where this whole story lives — in the wood itself.
The house standing on this site was built principally from materials salvaged from the Indianola home of a Morgan steamship captain named Henry Shepard, born in 1826. A man who made his living on the water, working those steamship lines, living in the port town of Indianola down on Matagorda Bay. He passed in 1879, and I imagine he never once imagined what was coming for that town — or for his house.
Because in August of 1886, a hurricane destroyed Indianola. The whole town, just gone. Now the captain was already seven years in the ground, so it fell to someone else to decide what to do with what was left of his home.
That someone was his son-in-law, Francis Walter Bates — born 1854 — a hardware merchant over in Cuero. And Francis Walter Bates was not the kind of man who let good lumber lie in a ruin. He shipped those salvaged materials here by rail, had the whole thing reconstructed on this very site, and by fall of 1886 the house was complete.
Think about that for a second — hurricane in August, house standing again by fall. The man was not slow. Into that house moved Francis Bates himself, and his wife Elizabeth Sheppard Bates, born 1857, daughter of the late captain.
And it wasn't just the two of them. Elizabeth's sister, Mrs. Jennie Sheppard Luther, born 1860, came along.
So did a brother, Henry D. Sheppard, born 1870. Another Sheppard brother, Joseph, along with his wife, his children, and his grandchildren, also frequented the place as part of the extended family.
This was not a quiet house. This was a house that breathed people. Francis Bates ran his hardware business in Cuero from 1884 all the way to 1930 — that's the whole span of his working life in that town.
He was a Mason, a Knight-Templar, and from 1887 to 1914 he served as a city Alderman, a man greatly interested in the volunteer fire department. A hardware merchant who cared about fire. There's a wry symmetry in there somewhere.
H. D. Sheppard — Henry D. — became the Cuero agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad and was known as a local business leader.
The Sheppard name carried weight in this town. Elizabeth Sheppard Bates passed in 1904, and after that, it was her sister Mrs. Jennie Sheppard Luther who became mistress of the house — the one who had moved in at the start and stayed the longest, living all the way to 1938.
In 1925 the house was altered and enlarged, given a little more room to breathe after nearly four decades of family life. And it remained in the Bates-Sheppard family until 1968. A captain's house, drowned by a hurricane, reborn on dry land in a different town — carrying the bones of the man who first built it, sheltering three generations of the family he left behind.
That's not just a house. That's a story that refused to wash away.
What the marker says
This structure was built principally of lumber salvaged from ruins of the Indianola home of Morgan steamship Captain Henry Shepard (1826-1879). After a hurricane destroyed Indianola in August 1886, the late captain's son-in-law, Francis Walter Bates (1854-1930), shipped the salvaged materials here by rail and reconstructed the house on this site. Completed in the fall of 1886, it was occupied by Bates, his wife Elizabeth Sheppard Bates (1857-1904), her sister Mrs. Jennie Sheppard Luther (1860-1938), and a brother Henry D. Sheppard (1870-1951). Bates was a hardware merchant in Cuero, 1884 to 1930. He was a Mason, a Knight-Templar, and (1887 to 1914) a city Alderman greatly interested in the volunteer fire department. H. D. Sheppard, for years the Cuero agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad, was a local business leader. After 1904 Mrs. Luther was mistress of the house. Another Sheppard brother, Joseph, with his wife, children, and grandchildren also frequented the house as part of the extended family. Altered and enlarged in 1925, this Victorian house remained in the Bates-Sheppard family until 1968. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1978