Daniel-Merriwether House
Kennard, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Isaac Adair “Ike” Daniel (1864-1924) was a prominent businessman and politician in the Kennard and Crockett area. He held the office of sheriff in Houston County from 1892 to 1894 and owned real estate and a variety of businesses such as a general store, gristmill, cotton gin and sawmill. Among his business ventures, Daniel helped build a telephone line from Crockett to Coltharp and opened a large mercantile store in Kennard, selling everything from farm and ranch equipment to home goods and funeral supplies. He also served as a representative of the Texas legislature from 1905 to 1907, 1907 to 1909, and 1920 to 1921. In January 1905, Ike Daniel married Ruth King (1875-1966). That same year, he purchased one acre of land from the Louisiana and Texas Lumber Company and began construction of this home. Built with pine lumber from the 4C Mill, this early Victorian farmhouse served as the Daniel home until 1909 when the Daniels sold the property and moved to Crockett. In 1912, James Creath “Jim” Merriwether (1881-1975) and his wife, Georgia Brown Merriwether (1886-1968), purchased the property and made it their home for over fifty years. The home at that time consisted of four large bedrooms, two large open-hearth fireplaces, a high-pitched roof and a wide wrap-around porch that encircled the east and south sides. In addition to the house, the property contained a smoke house, several barns and corncribs, and two garages. Many of the original features of the home including the gingerbread trim and the outbuildings remain. This historic home is a testament to the early development of Kennard.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Isaac 'Ike' Daniel was a leading figure in turn-of-the-century Houston County—sheriff, state legislator, and owner of a general store, gristmill, cotton gin, and sawmill—who even helped string a telephone line from Crockett to Coltharp. In 1905 he built this early Victorian farmhouse from pine milled at the nearby 4C Mill, living here until 1909. The Merriwether family bought it in 1912 and made it home for more than fifty years, preserving its gingerbread trim and outbuildings.
Why it matters
The house embodies the enterprise of the small-town Southern businessman-politician and stands as a well-preserved example of the timber-built farmhouses that shaped early Kennard.
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Related people
- · Isaac Adair Daniel
- · Ruth King
- · James Creath Merriwether
- · Georgia Brown Merriwether
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Kennard
Kennard, TX
Kennard was founded in 1903 by the Louisiana and Texas Lumber Company on 160 platted acres, with land agent Alexander McTavish doubling as its first postmaster. As the terminus of the Eastern Texas Railroad hauling timber toward Angelina County, the town quickly drew businesses and residents from older settlements nearby, gaining banks, stores, and lodges. Timber and farming carried it through the 1920s and 1930s, and after State Highway 7 shifted its center to Main Street, Kennard incorporated in 1969 and endures in the heart of the Davy Crockett National Forest.
Pioneer Settlers of Coltharp
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Settled in the 1850s, Coltharp grew into one of Houston County's notable early communities, with a schoolhouse, Masonic lodge, church, stores, and the farms of pioneer families like the Coltharps, Conners, and Greggs. Its economy shifted from cotton and corn to timber in the late 1880s. But when the railroad passed it by, residents drifted off to nearby sawmill towns, and by 1925 the community had faded.
Four C Mill
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In 1899 R.M. Keith, agent for the Central Coal & Coke Company, began buying up the region's virgin pine, and by 1902 the great "Four C" mill was sawing 300,000 board feet a day. A railroad from Lufkin and a web of tram lines fed fresh-cut timber to the mill, and the company built houses, a store, and logging camps for its workers. Rivalry with the nearby town of Ratcliff turned bitter—a 16-foot fence between them was dynamited more than once—before the company exhausted its 120,000 acres and dismantled the mill in 1920.
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This graveyard grew up with the Antioch Primitive Baptist Church, organized in 1859, its first marked grave dated the following year. Many of its unmarked burials belong to transient sawmill workers who lived nearby during the years the great 4C Mill operated at Ratcliff. Several neighboring communities still use the cemetery for the descendants of the church's original members.