DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker's the source here, and this is me, Duane, bringing it to life for you. Now, Harrison County has seen its share of bold characters come and go, but few left a mark quite like the man who moved his family into a particular house on the edge of Marshall sometime around 1856. That house — the oldest part of it, anyway — was erected about that year, and it didn't sit empty long before the Wigfall family came to call it home.
The man of that household was Louis Trezevant Wigfall, born in 1816 and gone by 1874, and if you're lookin' for a word to pin on him, the marker gives you one outright: flamboyant. Not a word the historians tend to throw around carelessly. Wigfall was a political leader who advocated strongly — and I do mean strongly — for secession and states' rights.
The man wasn't whispering those views in a back room somewhere. He carried them into the halls of power at every level he could reach. State Legislator.
United States Senator. And then, when the break came, Confederate Senator. When the Civil War arrived — running from 1861 to 1865 — that house in Harrison County became something more than a family home.
Confederate officers often stayed there. You can imagine the boots on the porch, the late conversations, the weight of a war pressing down on that old structure. The conflict passed.
The Wigfalls passed from the story. But the house kept going. Later owners got hold of it, enlarged the structure, and gave it a whole new face — Victorian features added on top of that mid-century bones underneath.
So what you've got out there in Harrison County is a house that layers time like a good story should. The oldest wood going back to about 1856, a flamboyant senator's family in the rooms, Confederate officers at the door, and then Victorian flourishes dressed over all of it like the county decided to put on something nicer once the smoke cleared. Some buildings just hold more history than they have any right to.
What the marker says
The oldest portion of this house was erected about 1856. It was occupied soon afterward by the family of Louis Trezevant Wigfall (1816-1874). A flamboyant political leader, Wigfall strongly advocated secession and states' rights. He served as a State Legislator, United States Senator, and Confederate Senator. during the Civil War (1861-1865), Confederate officers often stayed at the Wigfall home. Later owners enlarged the structure and added Victorian features. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1979