"Gay 90's House"
Jefferson, Marion County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Drawing room held many social affairs when city was a leading port in Texas. Now J. M. Benefield Home. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Jefferson home dates to the years when the town was one of Texas's leading river ports, and its drawing room hosted many of the social affairs of that prosperous era. Later known as the J. M. Benefield Home, it was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1966. The house survives as a reminder of Jefferson's Gilded Age heyday before the river trade declined.
Why it matters
The home preserves the social world of a booming inland port, a glimpse of the wealth and gentility that river commerce once brought to East Texas.
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Related people
- · J. M. Benefield
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Historic Houston Street Victorian Cottage
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This Victorian cottage stands near the ferry crossing that helped make Jefferson a booming inland river port in the mid-1800s. Its first known owners, John M. and Nancy Dollehite, took possession in 1851, and among its distinguished residents was Ernestine Sterne, who served as Jefferson's postmaster from 1872 to 1875. Katherine R. Wise, its owner since 1946, restored the home to its earlier grace.
Old Federal Court and Post Office Building
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From 1890 to 1964 this Jefferson building housed the U.S. court for the Eastern District of Texas and the town's post office, long after the riverport's steamboat heyday had faded. Preserved rather than razed, it now serves as a museum recalling the era when federal justice and the mail passed through its doors.
Early Jefferson Lodge Building
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Raised in the late 1850s to house the Jefferson Masonic Lodge, this Italianate building saw businesses come and go through the Civil War and later sheltered fraternal orders like the Knights of Honor. It survives as the last of the commercial-row structures that once lined Dallas Street near Jefferson's busy wharf. In its day this was among the most important inland ports in Texas.
Captain William Perry
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Arriving about 1840, William Perry helped turn Jefferson into a thriving inland port, running a shipping business and dredging a turning basin so boats could work the Big Cypress Bayou. He grew wealthy in land and shipping, tried his luck in the California gold rush, and served as Jefferson's mayor in 1863–64 before being fatally shot on his way home after midnight in 1869.