DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say, right here on the original ground where it all happened. Now, some houses earn their names fair and square. This one earned its name by looking like something that had no business sitting on dry land in Huntsville, Texas.
Dr. Rufus W. Bailey came to town in 1855 — a man of considerable range, mind you.
Teacher, minister, attorney, educated back in New England. He arrived as a language professor at Austin College, acquired an eight-acre tract right here on this site, and set to building himself a house. He called it Buena Vista.
Huntsville called it something else entirely. The neighbors took one look at that unusual design — two decks stacked up against the Texas sky — and decided it looked for all the world like a double-decker steamboat. And when a town makes up its mind about what something looks like, that's pretty much the end of the discussion.
Now, here's a wry little wrinkle in the story. According to local tradition, Bailey gave the house to his son. And his son, along with his wife, did not care for the architecture one bit.
Not one member of the family ever lived in it. A man builds a landmark, gives it away, and his own kin won't set foot inside. The Steamboat House sat there on its eight acres, waiting for someone worthy of the story it was about to hold.
Meanwhile, Dr. Rufus Bailey was keeping busy. He served as minister of the Huntsville Presbyterian Church and president of Austin College from 1858 to 1862.
Then in 1862, he rented the house out. And not to just anybody. General Sam Houston had been living at his farm in Chambers County — because he had been removed from the Office of Governor of Texas for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.
That's the kind of man Houston was, and that's how he came to need a place in Huntsville. Bailey rented him the Steamboat House. Dr.
Bailey died early in 1863. His son, F. B.
Bailey, inherited the house. And that summer, on July 26, 1863, General Sam Houston died of pneumonia at the Steamboat House. His funeral was held there the very next day.
The house a family never wanted to live in became the place where one of Texas's most towering figures drew his last breath. You can't write that. You just have to let it land.
Dr. Pleasant W. Kittrell, friend and physician to General Houston, bought the property in 1866.
He died of yellow fever in the 1867 epidemic. His widow, Mary Frances Goree Kittrell, held the property until 1873, when she traded the house to her brother — Major Thomas J. Goree, a local attorney and Confederate veteran.
Goree made extensive renovations, gave the old steamboat a Victorian appearance, dressed it up like a different era entirely. The house was moved one-half mile from this very site in 1927, and it fell into disrepair. But the story wasn't finished with it yet.
In 1936 it was moved again — this time to the Sam Houston Memorial Museum grounds — and on March 2nd, Texas Independence Day, it was presented to the state. A house that nobody in the family wanted to live in. Moved twice, reshaped, left to fall apart, and then rescued.
Still standing. Still carrying the name Huntsville gave it — not the one its builder chose. Some stories, friend, are bigger than the people who try to contain them.
What the marker says
Dr. Rufus W. Bailey, a teacher, minister and attorney educated in New England, came to Huntsville as a language professor at Austin College in 1855. He acquired an eight-acre tract on this site and erected a house which he named "Buena Vista," but which became known as "The Steamboat House" because its unusual design evoked the image of a double-decker steamboat. According to local tradition Bailey gave the house to his son, but the younger Bailey and his wife did not care for the architecture and none of the family ever lived in the house. Dr. Rufus Bailey served as both minister of the Huntsville Presbyterian Church and president of Austin College from 1858 to 1862. In 1862 Bailey rented the house to General Sam Houston, who had been living at his farm in Chambers County since being removed from the Office of Governor of Texas for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. Dr. Bailey died early in 1863, and his son, F. B. Bailey, inherited the house. General Houston died of pneumonia at the Steamboat House on July 26, 1863, and his funeral was held there the following day. Dr. Pleasant W. Kittrell, friend and physician to General Houston, bought the property in 1866. He died of yellow fever in the 1867 epidemic. In 1873 his widow, Mary Frances Goree Kittrell, traded the house to her brother, Major Thomas J. Goree, a local attorney and Confederate veteran, who made extensive renovations to give the house a Victorian appearance. The house was moved one-half mile from this site in 1927; it fell into disrepair. In 1936 it was moved to the Sam Houston Memorial Museum grounds and was presented to the state on March 2, Texas Independence Day. (2000)