Shaw House
Weatherford, Parker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Tennessee native Thomas J. Shaw (1819-1904), a farmer, rancher, and carpenter, migrated to Parker County in 1854. Two years later he built the original log room of the this house. He and his wife Louisa Ann (Long) (1827-1890) lived in the cabin for twenty years during which time eight of their thirteen children were born. In 1876 Shaw enlarged the cabin by adding the board and batten room. This double-pen structure served as the Shaw's residence until their deaths. Later used as a storage shed, the structure remained in the Shaw family until 1975. (1982)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Tennessee-born Thomas J. Shaw — farmer, rancher, and carpenter — reached Parker County in 1854 and two years later raised the original log room of this house. He and his wife Louisa Ann lived there for twenty years, and eight of their thirteen children were born under its roof before Shaw added a board-and-batten room in 1876. The resulting double-pen cabin stayed in the family until 1975, a survivor of Texas frontier homebuilding.
Why it matters
A hand-built log cabin like this embodies the westward-moving pioneer family that settled the Texas frontier one room at a time.
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Related people
- · Thomas J. Shaw
- · Louisa Ann Shaw
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Spring Creek Community
Weatherford, TX
Settlement of this stretch of Parker County began in 1854 when the T.J. Shaw family arrived from Tennessee and built a log cabin on Spring Creek, giving the growing community its name. Later settlers, including families who brought enslaved people with them, donated land for a school, churches, and a cemetery, and Methodist, Baptist, and Cumberland Presbyterian congregations took root. Spring Creek Cemetery holds area pioneers, unmarked graves, burials of enslaved families, and a veteran of both the Texas Revolution and the Civil War.
Baker Community
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Settlement of this part of Parker County took hold in the 1850s, and when Josiah and Kate Baker arrived with their extended family in 1854, the community that grew around their homestead took their name. The Bakers gave land for a school that opened in 1872 and for a Baptist church organized the same year by pioneer minister Noah T. Byars, while a family grave became the seed of the Baker Cemetery.
Parsons Station
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Parsons was a ranching hamlet that coalesced in 1854 around Amsley Parsons's homestead and boomed once the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe pushed its Weatherford-to-Cleburne line through in the 1880s. With cattle pens, a switching station, and telegraph, Western Union, and Wells Fargo offices, it was a vital shipping point where ranchers loaded livestock onto the cattle train locals nicknamed 'Old Nancy.' The 1931 arrival of State Highway 171 siphoned off the rail traffic, and the community faded until only scattered relics remained.
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