Stilley-Young House
Jefferson, Marion County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Builders completed this house for Frank Stilley, a cotton broker from Louisiana, and his wife Minerva Fox Stilley shortly after they married in 1860. They owned the house until the early 1880s. By 1885, former slave Charlie Young purchased the home. A well-known barber, Young wore a Prince Albert suit as a uniform and provided customers with personalized shaving mugs, imprinted with gold letters spelling out their names. The house remained in his family until 1983. The Greek Revival structure features an integral, full-width porch, box columns and symmetrical front elevation. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2006
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Completed for Louisiana cotton broker Frank Stilley and his wife Minerva around their 1860 marriage, this Greek Revival house passed by 1885 to Charlie Young, a formerly enslaved man who became a well-known Jefferson barber. Young wore a Prince Albert suit as his working uniform and gave regular customers personalized shaving mugs lettered in gold. His family kept the home until 1983, a rare thread of continuity through Reconstruction and beyond.
Why it matters
The house links antebellum wealth to Black entrepreneurship after emancipation, showing how a formerly enslaved man built standing and property in a Reconstruction-era Texas town.
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Related people
- · Frank Stilley
- · Minerva Fox Stilley
- · Charlie Young
Themes & tags
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