Joseph and Eliza Bird Residence
Round Mountain, Blanco County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Once home to area pioneer Joseph Bird, his wife Eliza, and their extended family, portions of this house date to the mid-1850s. Two single-pen log cabins, built at different times and exhibiting different construction techniques, eventually were joined together to form a dogtrot cabin under one roof, with limestone chimneys at the east and west ends. By the 1880s, the family built a half-story addition and full-length porch on the front, and shed rooms at the rear. Vertical cypress siding covered the exterior until a 1980s renovation revealed much of the original log construction. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2005
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Portions of this house reach back to the mid-1850s, when pioneers Joseph and Eliza Bird settled the Texas Hill Country. Two separate single-pen log cabins, built with different techniques, were joined under one roof to form a dogtrot cabin with limestone chimneys at each end, then expanded over the decades with a half-story addition and porches. Later cypress siding hid the original logs until a 1980s renovation revealed the pioneer construction beneath.
Why it matters
The evolving dogtrot cabin is a living record of frontier building methods and how a settler family's home grew alongside the community around it.
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Related people
- · Joseph Bird
- · Eliza Bird
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Joseph Bird
Round Mountain, TX
North Carolina native Joseph Bird brought his family to the land between Cypress Creek and the Pedernales around 1854, and for half a century helped build Blanco County as a frontier Baptist circuit minister, postmaster, rancher, and county judge. The settlement that grew up around him was first called Birdtown before being renamed Round Mountain, where a post office opened in 1857. Bird rode a preaching circuit, founded churches, and served as a Confederate first lieutenant during the Civil War.
Elitha Smith Martin
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Born in Virginia in 1830, Elitha Smith Martin came to Texas in 1856 and, widowed in 1869, moved to Round Mountain with her younger children and built a two-story hotel, a livery stable, and a general mercantile store. Appointed postmaster in 1879, she kept the post office in her store and served in that role for nearly seventeen years.
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Born in Louisiana in 1846 and brought to Texas as a boy, Joseph Wilson Baines served in the Civil War, then built a career as a teacher, lawyer, newspaper publisher, and public servant, holding the office of Texas Secretary of State from 1883 to 1887. He practiced law in Blanco before his death in 1906. His daughter Rebecca married Sam Ealy Johnson and became the mother of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the nation's 36th president.
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