Bourland-Stevens-Samuell House
Greenville, Hunt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1883 by Virginia B. Stevens, daughter of Col. James Bourland, on land deeded him by M. H. Wright, joining site Wright donated for Greenville. Bourland gave land to daughter in 1854. Part of her earlier house was incorporated into this southern colonial structure. Mrs. Stevens gave home to daughter, Berta V. Samuell, who sold to C. A. Leddy in 1912. Owners have been leading citizens in the town's history. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1969
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1883 by Virginia B. Stevens, daughter of Col. James Bourland, this Southern Colonial home rose on land tied to the very founding of Greenville, incorporating part of an earlier house. It passed down through her daughter before being sold in 1912, its successive owners drawn from the town's leading families. The house stands as a record of the founding generation who shaped Hunt County.
Why it matters
The home links Greenville's prominent early families to the land grants and civic gifts that gave the town its start, preserving the story of its founders in brick and timber.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Hunt County, in the Blackland Prairie of northeast Texas, was organized in 1846, the year after Texas joined the United States. Greenville became its county seat. In those early years it was a small frontier town on rich, dark soil that would eventually make the region one of the most productive cotton country in the state.
Towns like Greenville often got their start through a founding gift of land. A landowner donated acreage for a townsite or a courthouse square, and the lots around it became the most valuable property in the new community. Families who held land near that original core often became the town's leading citizens for generations.
By 1883, when this house went up, the frontier years were giving way to something more settled. The Civil War and Reconstruction were in the past, the railroad had reached the area, and cotton was fueling growth across the Blackland Prairie. Towns were putting up more substantial homes and businesses, and a well-built house near the heart of town made a statement about a family's place in the community.
People & events
The story of this house starts with land. M. H. Wright deeded property to Col. James Bourland, and that property bordered the site Wright donated for Greenville itself. In 1854, Bourland gave land to his daughter, Virginia. So the ground under this house is tied, in a very literal way, to the founding gift that created the town.
Virginia B. Stevens built the house in 1883. That is worth pausing on. In an era when property and building were usually described as a man's business, the marker names her as the builder. She did not start from nothing, either. Part of her earlier house was worked into the new Southern Colonial structure, so the home you see holds an older layer of her family's life inside it.
The house stayed in the family for another generation. Mrs. Stevens gave it to her daughter, Berta V. Samuell, which is why three family names appear in the title. In 1912 Berta sold it to C. A. Leddy. The marker's summary of its whole history is simple: its owners were leading citizens in the town's history. It was recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1969.
Its place in the American story
Across the country, towns grew up around founding land gifts, and the families connected to them shaped local life for decades. The Bourland-Stevens-Samuell House is a clear example of that process: one gift created the townsite, the neighboring land passed from father to daughter, and it was eventually built into a family home that stood at the center of the community.
The house also points to a story that is often missed: women as holders and builders of property. Here, the land passes from father to daughter, the daughter builds the house, and then she gives it to her own daughter. For three generations, the thread of ownership runs mostly through women. Their names on the marker keep that line visible.
Finally, it reflects a turning point for towns across the post-war South and West. The 1880s were when many frontier settlements became established towns, as railroads and cash crops brought new wealth. Houses built in a prestigious style during those years are the physical record of that transformation.
If you visit
The house stands in Greenville, close to the original heart of town that Wright's land gift created. When you look at it, notice the Southern Colonial style that the marker describes, and remember that part of an older house is tucked inside the 1883 building.
This is a historic home, so enjoy it from the street and respect the privacy of whoever lives or works there now unless it is clearly open to visitors. The marker, with its chain of owners from Bourland to Stevens to Samuell to Leddy, is the key to reading the house.
Greenville is an easy drive northeast of Dallas and makes a pleasant stop on a Blackland Prairie road trip. Spend some time downtown and around the courthouse area to get a sense of the town the early families helped build, and look for other markers that tell more of Hunt County's story.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Virginia B. Stevens
- · James Bourland
- · Berta V. Samuell
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Seven Courthouses of Hunt County
Greenville, TX
When Hunt County was organized in 1846, court first convened in the open air under oak trees before a log cabin courthouse rose on the Greenville square in 1847. Over the next eight decades the county cycled through a succession of buildings—frame, then brick—several lost to condemnation or the fire of 1884 that also gutted the surrounding business district. The present courthouse, the seventh, was dedicated in 1929 on the county's 83rd anniversary.
Hunt County Courthouse, 1929
Greenville, TX
By 1929 Greenville had already worn through six earlier courthouses, and the seventh — the one still standing — caught a moment when American public architecture was pivoting from stately classical revival toward the streamlined optimism of art deco. Local firm W. R. Ragsdale & Sons joined Austin's Page Brothers to raise a six-story landmark of solid masonry, decorative terra cotta, and triple-arched entries that remains the seat of Hunt County government.
Greenville
Greenville, TX
Created in 1846, Hunt County set its seat at a spot donated by surveyor McQuinney Howell Wright and named it Greenville for Texas independence veteran Thomas J. Green. Unusually for north central Texas, the county voted for secession, and Greenville endured hardship, violence, and federal occupation through the Civil War and Reconstruction. The arrival of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroad in 1880 transformed the town into a cotton-shipping powerhouse, complete with banks, streetcars, and Texas's first municipally owned electric utility.
John L. Southall
Greenville, TX
John L. Southall was assistant chief of police in Greenville when he was killed in the line of duty in 1912 trying to arrest a drunken gunman. His marker notes that he loaded soft-nosed bullets meant to wound and stop rather than kill—a practice that left him at a fatal disadvantage in the gunfight. Special Deputy Sheriff Emmett Shipp died alongside him.