The Thurman Place

Duane's take

Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'll let the marker do the talking. You're looking at one of the oldest homes in the city, and it has been standing long enough to collect quite a few names along the way, though only one of them stuck. It all begins around 1857, when the site belonged to a man who went by 'Major' P.

M. Graham. Now the marker puts those quotation marks right around that Major, and we'll leave them right there where it put them.

Graham was a land dealer, a surveyor, and a merchant, and he was no stranger to the machinery of local government. He had served as the original clerk of Cass County back in 1846, and Cass County at that time encompassed the town of Jefferson itself. By 1849 he was postmaster.

A man with a hand in a lot of pots, this Graham. But the home he started building around 1857 would not carry his name forward. In 1859, a merchant named Theo Nichols bought the place.

Nichols held onto it for a good long while, and then in 1882 he made a gift of it, to his daughter, Mrs. Samuel Thurman. That is when the story finds its final chapter.

The Thurmans settled in. They lived there until 1906, and somewhere on the west side of the block they kept a deer park. A deer park.

Right there in the city. The Thurmans eventually moved on, but the name they left behind never did. The Thurman Place.

That is what it has been called ever since, and that is what the marker calls it still.

What the marker says

One of oldest homes in city. Begun about 1857 while site was owned by "Major" P. M. Graham, land dealer, surveyor, and merchant, who was original clerk of Cass County (then encompassing town of Jefferson), 1846; postmaster, 1849. The place was bought 1859 by merchant Theo Nichols, who in 1882 gave it to his daughter, Mrs. Samuel Thurman. The Thurmans had a deer park on west side of the block, lived here until 1906, and gave property its lasting name. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1972