Dotey-Kirkham House (Little Old House)
Cleburne, Johnson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Believed to have been built in the late 1860s or early 1870s, soon after Cleburne was established, the house is within “water-totin” distance of what became known as City Spring on West Buffalo Creek. This single-story, white clapboard southern colonial cottage was originally the home of Martha Elizabeth Featherston (Aunt Pat) Dotey, sister of prominent Cleburne educator W. B. Featherston (1817-1878). The T.P. Kirkham family acquired the house in 1912 and retained it until 1965. Mr. Kirkham added the rock structure behind the house for use in his business as a hatter. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1965
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the years just after Cleburne was founded, this modest white clapboard cottage rose within easy reach of City Spring on West Buffalo Creek, close enough to carry water home by hand. It was first the home of Martha Elizabeth 'Aunt Pat' Featherston Dotey, sister of the noted local educator W. B. Featherston. The Kirkham family took ownership in 1912 and kept it for more than half a century, adding a stone workshop out back for T. P. Kirkham's hat-making trade. Recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1965, it survives as a small window into a young frontier county seat.
Why it matters
Everyday houses like this one preserve the texture of ordinary life in a newly settled Texas town, where a family home, a spring, and a small trade were the building blocks of community.
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Related people
- · Martha Elizabeth Featherston Dotey
- · W. B. Featherston
- · T. P. Kirkham
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of the Old City Spring
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This reliable spring drew explorers, soldiers of the Confederate Camp Henderson, and early settlers who traveled many miles to wash, haul water, and visit. Enterprising boys "toted" buckets to town merchants at a nickel apiece, and though the brick-lined pool was often dipped dry, the spring always refilled it. It supplied Cleburne until the town's first city well finally tapped the same source.
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With its wood and water, this shaded ground served the community around Camp Henderson for public gatherings after 1854. When the settlement became the county seat in 1867, men at a Fourth of July picnic here chose the town's name — Cleburne — in honor of the Civil War commander whom many local veterans had served under.
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Johnson County's first Episcopal parish was organized in 1871, not long after the region's first bishop, Alexander Gregg, began visiting in 1860. The congregation of the Holy Comforter completed Cleburne's first church building in 1874, then raised the present sanctuary in 1893, which has served continuously and survives in its original form. It is a rare intact example of a frontier-era Texas parish church.
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