McClure-McReynolds-Fowler Home
Palestine, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1849 by Judge Alexander E. McClure (1815 - 1870), who came from Tennessee to Texas in 1840 and lived for a number of years at Old Fort Houston. Judge McClure was the first district clerk in Anderson County, co-owner of the "Trinity Advocate," and one of the most prominent lawyers in East Texas. The house was purchased from the McClures in 1884 by Zachariah Aycock McReynolds (1846 - 1928), who immigrated to Texas in 1875 from Adairsville, Georgia. He was a Confederate veteran who had fought in the sieges at Vicksburg and Atlanta in the Civil War, 1861-1865. About 1890 the house was remodeled using the old timber, including well preserved hand-hewn sills. From 1880 to 1908, Z. A. McReynolds held the offices of district clerk, county clerk, county judge, tax collector, and postmaster. In 1934 Colonel Godfrey Rees Fowler (1876 - 1958) and his wife Ella Sue (McReynolds) returned to Palestine to retire to her old family home. Colonel Fowler was a grandson of Judge John H. Reagan (first Texas Railroad Commission chairman). Fowler had fought in the Spanish-American War, the Philippine insurrection, the Nicaraguan uprising, and World War I. The McClures and McReynoldses have been the only property owners since 1848. (1970)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Judge Alexander E. McClure, a Tennessee lawyer who came to Texas in 1840, built this Palestine home in 1849 and served as Anderson County's first district clerk. In 1884 it passed to Confederate veteran Z. A. McReynolds, who had survived the sieges of Vicksburg and Atlanta and went on to hold nearly every county office. It later sheltered his daughter and her husband, Colonel Godfrey Fowler, a soldier of the Spanish-American War, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and World War I.
Why it matters
Through three generations of one East Texas household, the house connects the frontier bar, the Confederacy, and America's turn-of-the-century wars of empire.
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Related people
- · Alexander E. McClure
- · Zachariah Aycock McReynolds
- · Godfrey Rees Fowler
- · John H. Reagan
Related events
- · Siege of Vicksburg
- · Battle of Atlanta
- · Spanish-American War
- · World War I
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Palestine Salt Works C. S. A.
Palestine, TX
During the Civil War salt was a strategic necessity—for preserving meat and feeding armies—and this works labored to supply the Confederacy at a fixed price, though desperate private buyers often paid far more. Enslaved workers pumped brine from a line of wells through hollowed-gum-log pipelines to great iron kettles, where it was slowly boiled down into salt.
John H. Reagan
Palestine, TX
Born in Tennessee in 1818, John Henninger Reagan rose through Texas public life as a judge and congressman before resigning his seat in 1861 to serve as postmaster general of the Confederacy. Captured and imprisoned after the war, he returned to farm near Palestine and re-entered national politics, where he led the fight for the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act that first brought railroad monopolies under federal regulation. He capped his career as the first chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission.
John H. Reagan
Palestine, TX
Born in Tennessee in 1818, John Henninger Reagan came to Texas, fought in the Cherokee War, and built a career in law and politics that carried him to the U.S. Congress by 1857. When war came he resigned over states' rights and served as postmaster general of the Confederacy, was captured and imprisoned, then returned to Texas and rebuilt his life. His greatest legacy came afterward: as congressman and senator he led the fight that produced the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, then became the first chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, pioneering government regulation of the railroads.
Anderson County in the Civil War
Palestine, TX
Settled largely by families from the Deep South, Anderson County voted overwhelmingly—870 to 15—for secession in 1861, even as Governor Sam Houston pleaded against it on the steps of Palestine's Osceola Hotel. More than 1,100 local men filled a dozen Confederate companies, over 300 dying on battlefields from New Mexico to Pennsylvania. On the home front, factories and salt works supplied the war effort while a hotel served as a makeshift hospital; among the county's leaders was John H. Reagan, the Confederacy's postmaster general.