Blackwell House
Canton, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Known as the oldest house in Canton, this residence was built for Henry F. Blackwell, II, and his wife Nannie Jane Blackwell. An early merchant in Canton, Blackwell also served as county sheriff. Records state the house was built in 1886, and was home to the Blackwells and their eight children. Many alterations and changes were made to the house through the years, and several rooms were added. Continuously occupied by Blackwell family members until 1975, the house was donated to the city of Canton by descendants of the original occupants in 1988. (1996)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Reputed to be the oldest house in Canton, this residence was built in 1886 for Henry F. Blackwell II — an early merchant who also served as county sheriff — and his wife Nannie Jane, who raised eight children here. Altered and expanded over the decades, it stayed in Blackwell hands until 1975 and was given to the city by the family's descendants in 1988. It survives as a rare link to the town's earliest days.
Why it matters
The house preserves the domestic and civic world of a founding merchant family at the heart of a small East Texas county seat.
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Related people
- · Henry F. Blackwell II
- · Nannie Jane Blackwell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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When the Texas Legislature carved Van Zandt County out of the frontier in 1848, its seat of government wandered with its shifting boundaries — first at Jordan's Saline, then to the newly platted town of Canton in 1850. A surveying blunder soon revealed that Canton sat two and a half miles off the county's own land, and only a landowner's donation in 1853 spared officials the cost and chaos of moving the seat. Resentment ran so deep that voters refused to pay for the 1857 brick courthouse until 1880.
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