Hudgins-Blake House
Jefferson, Marion County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Residence with fine door and window styling; large rooms; 13' ceilings; wide board floors. Built during 1855-67 era, by William P. Hudgins, ;the house had a series of short-term owners before W. L. and Mattie A. Blake, prominent Jefferson Central (Negro) School teachers, bought it in 1897; their family owned it for 60 years. Restored by 1957 purchasers, Bill R. and Ella McDonald, house has been preserved since 1961 by Mrs. W. L. (Nellie) Jackson. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built between 1855 and 1867 by William P. Hudgins in the thriving riverport of Jefferson, this house with its 13-foot ceilings and wide-board floors passed through several owners before W. L. and Mattie A. Blake, respected teachers at the Jefferson Central (Negro) School, purchased it in 1897 and kept it in their family for six decades. Its later preservation ensured the survival of a rare antebellum-era home tied to Black educators of the post-emancipation South.
Why it matters
The home's long ownership by prominent African American teachers connects it to the vital work of educating freed people and their descendants in Reconstruction-era and Gilded Age East Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1850s and 1860s Jefferson was one of the busiest towns in Texas. Steamboats came up from the Red River and Louisiana across a chain of lakes and bayous, and the town became a major inland port for Northeast Texas. Cotton went out and manufactured goods came in, and the people who made money from that trade built fine houses.
The Hudgins-Blake House dates from that era, built sometime between 1855 and 1867. Those years covered the boom before the war, the Civil War itself, and the start of Reconstruction, and the house went up while the country was coming apart and being put back together.
Jefferson's prosperity didn't last. After the great logjam on the Red River was cleared in the 1870s, water levels on the route fell and steamboat traffic declined, and the railroads took over trade. The town lost its importance as a port, but because it stopped growing so quickly, many of its older homes were never torn down. That helps explain why a house like this one survived.
People & events
William P. Hudgins built the house, and the marker gives an idea of its quality: fine door and window styling, large rooms, thirteen-foot ceilings, and wide board floors. High ceilings were practical in the hot East Texas climate, and they were also a sign of wealth and good taste.
After Hudgins the house changed hands several times. Then in 1897 it was bought by W. L. and Mattie A. Blake, teachers at Jefferson Central School, which the marker identifies as the town's school for Black students. In the segregated South, Black teachers were among their communities' most respected leaders, and the marker calls the Blakes prominent. For two Black educators to own a fine house like this one at the end of the nineteenth century was an achievement, made at a time when Jim Crow laws were taking hold across the South.
The Blake family owned the house for sixty years, which means the house was a Black family's home for longer than it belonged to anyone else in its history. In 1957 Bill R. and Ella McDonald bought and restored it, and from 1961 it was preserved by Mrs. W. L. (Nellie) Jackson. In 1973 the house was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Its place in the American story
After emancipation, freed people across the South worked hard to get an education. Families and communities built schools, often with very little money, and the teachers who staffed them taught children whose parents had often been forbidden by law to learn to read. The Blakes' work at Jefferson Central School was part of that broad national effort.
The house also tells a story about property. For most of American history, owning a home has been one of the main ways families build wealth and pass it on. For Black Americans after slavery, buying and keeping a home was difficult, and sixty years of ownership through the Jim Crow era was a real accomplishment.
The Hudgins-Blake House is a reminder that the history of a building is more than the history of the person who built it. Its antebellum builder is only part of the story. The house is significant just as much for the Black educators who made it their family home for six decades.
If you visit
Look at the details the marker points out: the fine door and window work, the proportions that suggest very tall ceilings, and the general dignity of a house built when Jefferson was booming. Think about the Blakes coming home here after a day of teaching, and their family living in these rooms for sixty years.
This is a historic home, so treat it as private property unless you know it is open to visitors. You can learn a great deal from the street.
Jefferson is one of the best towns in Texas for walking around and seeing old houses. Spend some time on its streets of historic homes, visit the old riverfront along Big Cypress Bayou, where steamboats once tied up, and plan a day or a weekend in this corner of Northeast Texas near the Louisiana line. As you look at the town's grand houses, ask who lived in them after the original builders, because, as this house shows, those later owners are part of the story too.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · William P. Hudgins
- · W. L. Blake
- · Mattie A. Blake
Themes & tags
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