HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil WarReconstruction & Gilded Age

George T. Todd House

Jefferson, Marion County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Capt. George Todd (1839-1913) was a Confederate veteran, ex-district attorney, former state legislator, and senior member of East Texas Bar. He built this home in 1893 for his family: wife Marion (Miller); sons Van Dyke, A. Miller, Charles C., and William H.: and daughters Eva C., Mary V. (later Mrs. J. S. Lewis), and Lula D. (later Mrs. L. E. Hough). Architecture is late Victorian featuring a corner tower with mansard roof. Descendants still own and preserve the structure. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1974

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Captain George T. Todd, a Confederate veteran who became a district attorney, state legislator, and senior East Texas attorney, built this late Victorian home in Jefferson in 1893 for his large family. Distinguished by a corner tower with a mansard roof, the house remains in the hands of his descendants.

Why it matters

The home reflects how Confederate veterans rebuilt civic and professional life in East Texas during the decades after the Civil War.

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Related people

  • · George T. Todd
  • · Marion Miller Todd

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Site of Home of Captain George T. Todd

Jefferson, TX

Captain George T. Todd came to the Republic of Texas as a boy and grew into one of Marion County's most consequential men. He fought with the celebrated Hood's Texas Brigade in the Civil War, famously taking command at Chickamauga after General Hood was wounded, then rode with Lane's Partisan Rangers in the war's final year. In peacetime he served in the legislature and as a UT regent, but he is best remembered as the district attorney who spent seven years prosecuting the sensational 'Diamond Bessie' murder case.

Confederate Civil War Meat Packing Plant

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Beginning in 1861, J. B. Dunn's meat plant near Jefferson dressed, packed, and shipped beef, pork, and mutton to the Confederate army, salting the meat in 42-gallon barrels and moving it along the Cypress Bayou shipping route. So much food and cotton flowed out of Texas that the state earned the name "breadbasket of the Confederacy," though the army sometimes complained of spoiled, bloody meat in the barrels.

Atkins House

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This late Greek Revival house was probably built in 1860 by T. O. Alley, son of Jefferson co-founder Daniel N. Alley. Later owners included steamboat captain James M. Tucker, who served in the 16th Texas Dismounted Cavalry of the Confederate Army, and W. T. Atkins, an official of the Jefferson Iron Company who held the home the longest, from 1892 to 1923. Its succession of owners mirrors the rise and fall of a busy riverport town.

Claiborne House

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Volney H. Claiborne, a Virginian who had served in the Civil War, married Lucy Perry in 1864 and in 1875 built this one-and-a-half-story house in the late Greek Revival style, then already uncommon in Texas. Its design closely echoed the nearby home of Lucy's father, William Perry, and the couple raised eight children within its walls before Volney's death in 1897 left the property to their descendants.