DUANE
Duane's take
The way the marker tells it, here's what I know about the Tol Barret House. Now, out here in Nacogdoches County, you learn real quick that the most ordinary-lookin' farmhouse might be hidin' the most extraordinary story. And this one — this one has got layers.
It starts with a man named T. J. Johnson, founder of Melrose, eleven miles to the east of here, and his wife Amanda.
They were the first owners of this farmhouse. Solid, respectable, the kind of people who anchor a community. But then, in 1848, Amanda's sister Julia moved in — Julia, wife of John B.
Hardeman. The house passed into a new chapter, the way houses do when families grow and shift and share what they've built. But here's where the story really starts bendin' toward something remarkable.
Sometime in the 1860s, Amanda — generous woman that she was — gave the farmhouse to her foster daughter, Angelina Martha, who went by Thomas in marriage, and to Angelina's husband. And that husband's name is the one that echoes. Lyne Taliaferro Barret.
Known to just about everyone as Tol. Born in 1832, died in 1913. And in the year 1866, Tol Barret drilled the first producing oil well in Texas — out near a place called Oil Springs, twelve miles to the southeast of where you're standin' right now.
The first. Producing. Oil well.
In Texas. Let that settle a moment. This modest farmhouse, handed down through sisters and foster daughters and generous gestures, was the home of the man who cracked open the ground and found what Texas would one day be known for the world over.
He didn't do it in some grand estate. He came home to this. And the Barret descendants?
They kept comin' home to it too — generation after generation, all the way until 1956. Then, in 1975, the house was moved to its current location, carrying every year of that history right along with it. Some houses hold families.
This one held a little piece of what Texas became.
What the marker says
This farmhouse was first owned by T. J. Johnson, founder of Melrose (11 mi. E), and his wife Amanda. In 1848 it became the home of Amanda's sister Julia, the wife of John B. Hardeman. In the 1860s Amanda gave it to her foster daughter Angelina Martha (Thomas) and son-in-law Lyne Taliaferro "Tol" Barret (1832-1913), who drilled the first producing oil well in Texas near Oil Springs (12 mi. SE) in 1866. Occupied by Barret descendants until 1956, the house was moved here in 1975. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1981