The Pilgrim Home

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about The Pilgrim Home, out in Gonzales County. Now settle in, because this one's got layers. You've got a house, a bride, a newspaper editor, and a footnote to Texas history all rolled into one address.

In 1883, a man named Carey J. Pilgrim built a home for his bride, Mary Fleda Boothe. And not just any home.

This place came with a center hall, two double fireplaces, and wide board pine floors. You can already hear it, can't you. The creak of that pine underfoot, the pop and hiss of a fire on a January night, the kind of house a man builds when he wants to say something without words.

Carey J. Pilgrim was the editor of the Gonzales Inquirer, so the man knew how to make a statement. But here's where the story gets a little bigger than one house on one lot in one Texas county.

Carey's father was T. J. Pilgrim.

And T. J. Pilgrim is credited as the founder of the first Sunday School in Texas.

The first one. So the son who built this fine center-hall house with its double fireplaces and its singing pine floors, he came from stock that was putting down roots in Texas before most people could find it on a map. A bride named Mary Fleda Boothe, a wedding gift built in wood and warmth, and a family name already written into the foundation of Texas itself.

That's The Pilgrim Home.

What the marker says

Center hall, 2 double fireplaces, wide board pine floors. Built 1883 for his bride, Mary Fleda Boothe, by Carey J. Pilgrim, editor "Gonzales Inquirer," son of T. J. Pilgrim, founder first Sunday School in Texas. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965