Bruce-Davis House
Cresson, Johnson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Alabama-born Madison Jones, who donated land in Cresson for a school and a Methodist church, had this neighborhood platted in 1889. He sold this lot to Richard Bruce (1849-1895), a stock raiser from a pioneer Johnson County family. Bruce built this modest frame house and embellished the structure with decorative porch trim. The interior has beaded walls and ceilings. After Bruce's death, his widow Mary (Wood) (1852-1924) married James F. Davis (1846-1928). They continued to occupy the residence, which has been enlarged three times.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Alabama-born Madison Jones platted this Cresson neighborhood in 1889, he sold the lot to Richard Bruce, a stock raiser descended from a pioneer Johnson County family. Bruce built a modest frame house and dressed it with decorative porch trim, beaded walls and beaded ceilings. After his death in 1895 his widow Mary married James F. Davis, and the couple continued to live here, enlarging the home three times over the years.
Why it matters
The house traces how a frontier stock-raising family put down permanent roots as small North Texas towns took shape at the close of the 19th century.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Madison Jones
- · Richard Bruce
- · Mary (Wood) Davis
- · James F. Davis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Crockett's Bounty
Granbury, TX
Frontiersman and former congressman David Crockett came to Texas in early 1836, pledged allegiance to the provisional government, and died with the Alamo's defenders that March. For his sacrifice his heirs were granted nearly 1,300 acres, and in 1853 his widow Elizabeth and their sons arrived to claim the land, building cabins and farming here. Over later generations the tract passed through the hands of cattlemen, a Depression-era dairy, and a quarter-horse operation.
Grave of Elizabeth Crockett
Acton, TX
This grave marks the resting place of Elizabeth Crockett, second wife of frontiersman and Alamo defender David Crockett, who married him in Tennessee in 1816. After Crockett's death at the Alamo, Elizabeth eventually came to Texas on land granted for his service and died in 1860 in what is now Hood County. Her monument stands as a tribute to the family the famed frontiersman left behind.
Long Creek Cemetery
Granbury, TX
Also called Temple Hall Cemetery, this burial ground is the last trace of two vanished pioneer settlements—Temple Hall and Center Mill—that grew up along Long Creek in the mid-1800s. Its earliest known graves are the Haley children, who died in 1864 and 1865, and it holds judges, county officials, mill builder Thomas Parkinson, and veterans of conflicts reaching back to the Civil War. A cemetery association has tended the grounds since about 1909.
W.M. Miller Cemetery
Granbury, TX
Established in 1894, the W.M. Miller Cemetery is one of the small family and community burial grounds that dot Hood County, and it carries the state's Historic Texas Cemetery designation awarded in 2008. Such late-19th-century graveyards took root as scattered farming families needed consecrated ground close to home. Its official recognition helps protect a modest but genuine link to the county's settlement era.