The J.H. Reedy House

Like many of the houses along University Avenue, the house at 908 East University Ave. has many ties to Southwestern University. The first owner of the house was John Henry Reedy, who was a chemistry professor at Southwestern from 1905 to 1913. Reedy purchased the lot for the house from Absolom Travis Irvine in 1907 for $900 and the house was built sometime between 1909 and 1911. Professor Reedy was one of three faculty members who left Southwestern in 1913 with to join the faculty of Southern Methodist University in Dallas under President Robert Hyer.

After Professor Reedy left Georgetown, his house was sold to the Kappa Sigma fraternity and it became their chapter house for 25 years. In 1938, the fraternity sold the house to Aubrey Earl McLean and his wife, Minnie Mae. The McLeans provided room and board to other Southwestern students and the house was known to be a popular gathering place in the 1940s. Aubrey McLean died in 1961 and Minnie Mae McLean died in 1977. After Minnie Mae's death, their daughters sold the home to Robert L. Stewart and Martha Dunham-Stewart, who owned it from 1978 to 1981. Carroll and Dorian Sullivan purchased the home in 1981.

All the owners of the house from the McLeans forward have made some sort of changes or renovations to the house. The Sullivans added a back porch and and extended the front porch around the northwest corner of the house.

The current owners of the house, Ken and Brenda Smith, purchased the house from the Sullivans in 1998 and have improved the house even more, especially in the back yard. I had the opportunity to visit the house last spring and it is truly beautiful - one of the most beautiful homes in Georgetown.

The Smiths have recently decided to put the house on the market, so it will be changing owners again soon. The listing for the house, which can be found here, has some photos of the inside.

The Linnie Campbell House

We have discovered all sorts of interesting tidbits about Georgetown residents of the past while researching this house at 1502 Ash St. for the 2012 Georgetown Heritage Society Holiday Home Tour.

The house was built around 1922 for a woman named Linnie Campbell. Mrs. Campbell was born Salinda Laura Young in 1866 in Winchester, Texas. She married Shelby Campbell in 1886 and assumed his position as tax collector in Lee County when he died in 1903. Later, relocating to Georgetown, Mrs. Campbell became the first woman to hold public office in Williamson County when she was elected county clerk, serving in that role from 1918 to 1922. One reason Mrs. Campbell may have moved to Georgetown is because her daughter, Lucille Campbell, attended Southwestern University from 1904-1908.

Lucille Campbell herself has an interesting story. After graduating from Southwestern,  she was hired to teach English at a Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Oklahoma by Samuel Page Duke, the assistant principal and football coach. Lucille Campbell later married Samuel Duke and they returned to his family home in Virginia. In 1918 Samuel Duke was appointed president of Harrisonburg Normal School, later to become Madison College, and then James Madison University.  Dr. Duke served as president of Madison College until 1949. Mrs. Duke lived in an apartment not far from campus until her death in 1980. Linnie Campbell died in 1954 and is buried in the IOOF Cemetery behind Southwestern University.

The current owners of this house, Jordan and Lesley Ann Maddox, are only the third owners of the house. They recently completed a beautiful restoration of the house (you can see a photo of the house prior to restoration in this previous blog post), and it will be open to the public Dec. 8-9.

New to Old Town

A new house is going up at the corner of Holly and Third Streets.

Transformation Complete

The transformation is complete on this house at the corner of Myrtle and 5th Streets. See my previous post from September 2011 for a photo of what the house looked like before the new addition. The new garage that was added on 5th Street is particularly nice!

Identical Twins

The house at 1202 15th St. known as the Chesser-Morgan House has an interesting history. It was built around 1895 and was originally located on the Southwestern University campus. A house that looks exactly like it still exists on the Southwestern campus and is currently used as the campus police station (see below). The house at 1202 15th St. was moved to its current location by a team of oxen in 1905, possibly to make room for the extension of Maple Street.The house that remains on the Southwestern University campus was covered with limestone when the campus decided to have all its buildings have the same limestone exterior.

Even after it was no longer located on the Southwestern University campus, the house at 1202 15th St. still had connections to Southwestern. The second owner of the house was Daniel Morgan, a retired Methodist minister. After his death, the house was owned by Morgan's daughter, Ruth Morgan Ferguson. Ferguson served as Dean of Women at Southwestern from 1935 until her retirement in 1960.

The Chesser-Morgan house is one of six that will be on the Georgetown Heritage Society's annual Holiday Home Tour this year. The tour will be held Dec. 8-9, so mark your calendars if you want an opportunity to see this charming Victorian house on the inside. Leslie Kaufman has filled her house with a variety of interesting collections.

Looking Better

This house at the corner of College and 8th Streets was recently repainted and is undergoing some renovations. Meanwhile, just up the road at 602 College Street (top photo), a house that was formerly pink has just been repainted.

New on Main Street

This new house has gone up on the 1800 block of Main Street where a smaller house was previously torn down.