The Millard - Lee House

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Millard-Lee House, so take it straight from the record. Now, some houses just sit where they're put and call it a life. This one had other ideas.

It starts around 1837, when a man named Robert F. Millard built it in Nacogdoches. Millard was not a man who did just one thing.

Merchant, deputy postmaster, road overseer. Born in 1803, gone by 1847, but before he left this world he put up a solid family home, the kind that could double as a boardinghouse when the occasion called for it. And in a growing Texas town, the occasion called for it.

So the house served. It sheltered the Millard family, and it sheltered travelers passing through, sitting right there near the public square in Nacogdoches, which today is about five miles south of where you'd find it now. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Come 1859, a blacksmith-merchant-county official by the name of David Lee bought the property. David Lee was another man who wore more than one hat, and the house he bought would carry his family's name for over a century. From 1859 all the way to 1960, it remained the Lee family home.

More than a hundred years rooted to that same Nacogdoches soil near the public square. Then 1960 came, and the house's long stay in that spot came to an end. Now here's where the story takes a turn most old houses never get.

In 1970, a woman named Mrs. Albert Thomas, Lera Millard Thomas, bought that house. She moved it.

She restored it. And she brought it here, to a place called Millard's Crossing, named for the very family that built it back in 1837. The builder's own descendant reached across time and brought his house home.

Some stories have a way of closing the circle, and this one closes it just about as clean as you could ask.

What the marker says

Built about 1837 by Nacogdoches merchant-deputy postmaster - road overseer Robert F. Millard (1803-47) as family home that sometimes was also a boardinghouse. In 1859 David Lee, a blacksmith-merchant-county official, bought the house. Then situated near public square in Nacogdoches (5 mi. S), it remained until 1960 the Lee family home. In 1970, Mrs. Albert (Lera Millard) Thomas bought, moved, and restored it here at Millard's Crossing, named for the builder's family. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1974