Foster Home

🏛️The era

Mattie Brigance Foster built this home in 1900, at the turn of a new century. Navasota sits in Grimes County, in the old cotton country of the Brazos and Navasota river valleys. It was a railroad town whose growth was tied to the rail lines and the agricultural trade that ran through it. By 1900 the frontier years were in the past, and towns like Navasota had settled into being commercial centers for the farms around them.

The region's roots go much deeper. Grimes County lies near the heart of early Anglo-American Texas, close to Washington-on-the-Brazos, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed in 1836. Mattie's father, Franklin Brigance, was among the county's early settlers, so her family history reached back to the first generations of American settlement here.

The year 1900 was also a time of change in American taste. Over the previous decades, the ornate Victorian style, with its towers, gingerbread trim and busy surfaces, had dominated homebuilding. By the end of the century many builders and homeowners were turning to simpler, calmer designs, and this house reflects that shift.

👥People & events

At the center of this story is Mattie Brigance Foster. She grew up as the daughter of a Grimes County settler, married, and was widowed. Shortly after her husband died she did something notable: she had this house built for herself, a lasting home of her own design rather than a retreat to a smaller life.

A widow overseeing a new house in 1900 took resources and real resolve. Women of her time had far fewer legal and financial freedoms than men, and widowhood could mean hardship. The marker doesn't tell us her reasons or circumstances, and it's best not to guess. The house itself shows a woman who chose to put down roots and build for the future.

The home she built is of cypress-frame construction. Cypress was prized in the South because it resists rot and insects, which made it a practical choice in a warm, humid climate. Under its multi-gabled roof, the house combines elements of the Colonial Revival style with the Shingle style, both popular choices at the time for people who wanted a home that felt up to date but restrained.

The house stayed in the Foster family for sixty years, about two generations. Mattie's decision to build here gave her family a home that lasted well into the twentieth century. In 1982 the house was recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

The Foster Home shows on a small scale a national change in how Americans built houses. The Colonial Revival style drew on the country's early architecture and grew more popular after the nation's 1876 centennial sparked fresh interest in the colonial past. The Shingle style, which developed in New England, favored flowing shapes and simple surfaces over Victorian ornament. Seeing both here, in a small Texas town, shows how far new architectural ideas had spread by 1900.

The house also belongs to the history of American women. Stories like Mattie Foster's are easy to overlook, because property, business and public life were largely recorded under men's names. A home built by a widow on her own initiative is a quiet but real piece of evidence about the independence and influence women could exercise even in a restrictive era.

Finally, the house is a reminder that history isn't only made in capitals and on battlefields. Small towns like Navasota, and families like the Brigances and Fosters, make up much of the American story, and it's their homes, more than any monument, that preserve the texture of everyday life.

🧭If you visit

Look closely at the roofline. The many gables give the house its character and are one of the clearest clues to its turn-of-the-century design. Compare it in your mind with the elaborate Victorian houses of the decades before, and notice how this one leans toward cleaner, quieter lines.

This is a historic home, so view it respectfully from public spaces unless it's open to visitors, and don't assume you can go inside. The pleasure here is in reading the architecture from the street and imagining the woman who decided, at a hard point in her life, to build it.

Navasota is a good stop on a road trip through the historic Brazos Valley. Washington-on-the-Brazos, the birthplace of Texas independence, is nearby, and Navasota has its own historic downtown and a proud musical heritage tied to the blues. The Foster Home is a fine addition to an afternoon of exploring old Texas.