Whetstone-Lancaster House

The Republic of Texas granted Peter Whetstone land that included this homesite for his participation in the siege of Bexar in December 1835 during the Texas Revolution. Whetstone gave part of the property for a town square, courthouse, school, and church for the county seat of Marshall. He was killed in an 1843 shooting during the Regulator-Moderator land disputes of Harrison and Shelby counties, and after his death his wife sold their home and sixteen acres to G.B. Adkins. In 1860 W.T. Smith, secretary of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, bought the property and built a two-story house around an existing cabin from Whetstone's ownership. Dr. John Branch Lancaster, a physician to Union and Confederate soldiers in Marshall during the Civil War, bought the home in 1872. Lancaster and his wife Lucy had sixteen children, though some did not survive to adulthood, and their son Cornelius became an architect who designed several surviving buildings in Marshall and served as supervising architect of the 1901 Harrison County Courthouse. Dr. Lancaster died in 1886, and Lucy remained in the home until her death in 1920. The house was later divided into apartments for the single daughters who remained there, and it stayed in the Lancaster family descendants' hands until 1992. The Greek Revival Whetstone-Lancaster House is a side-gabled frame residence of cypress and brick with four square pillars supporting a two-story portico, double entry doors framed by transom and sidelights, and a small balcony supported by decorative iron braces.

Marshall, Texas · United States