Powhatan House

Sydnor's largest single enterprise, however, was his slave market. The market was said to have been the largest auction block west of New Orleans, and Sydnor himself was the auctioneer. Despite the great demand for slaves on the newly-cleared Texas plantations, Sydnor and other slave dealers found themselves unable to satisfy their clients at prices the newly-established planters could afford. The embargo against the importation of slaves from Africa, imposed in 1808, had led to the gradual inflation of the prices of native-born slaves. Sydnor and other dealers realized that without cheap labor the boom in Texas cotton, and the resultant prosperity of Galveston, would collapse. The pressure for cheaper slaves led Sydnor into the dangerous and illegal African slave trade. Both the British and American governments harassed slave ships. in the Atlantic and Caribbean with gunfire and capture or impoundment.
For these reasons, Sydnor lent principal assistance to "General" Thomas Walker, who proposed to invade Nicaragua and found a colony that would import slaves for Texas and the southwest. Although this expedition proved to be a failure, Sydnor's support of such extreme measures to protect the slave trade was cogent proof of his ardent devotion to the cause of slavery and the "Southern System."

Sydnor was elected Mayor of Galveston in 1846 and he was instrumental in constructing a city market and organizing a chamber of commerce, to foster trade with other Gulf ports. Sydnor promoted a railroad causeway to link the island city to mainland trading centers, organized the city's first police force, and set up its original fire department. Under Sydnor's mayoralty, the city's first free public schools were opened, and comparatively liberal laws guaranteeing island slaves a percentage of hourly wages for "hired out" work and minor legal rights were drafted. Sydnor's wife was active in the establishment of the city's first Baptist church, and she persuaded Sydnor to donate money for its construction.

In 1847 Sydnor set about building his own home which was intended as a showplace for his recently acquired wealth. Sydnor dubbed the 24-room, Doric Greek Revival house "Powhatan," after the Indian tribes in his native Virginia. The original Powhatan house had a six-column portico, a characteristically Galvestonian raised basement or ground floor, and five acres of gardens planted with oleanders which were to become a feature of the island's gardens. The house itself was largely the result of Sydnor's trading ventures. It was built of lumber, windows, sectional columns, hardware and well-crafted cyma recta moldings shipped from Maine in the otherwise empty holds of cotton vessels returning from the northern ports. The fabrication of houses for Texans, in the seaports of Maine, was one of the dominant elements of the trade balance between Galveston and the North. Two other houses still standing in Galveston, the Menard House and the Williams-Tucker House were also built of parts fabricated in Maine.

Col. Sydnor experimented with the operation of the Powhatan House as a hotel, but his efforts were thwarted by the house's distance from the wharves and main business center. Sydnor resorted to offering a free surrey-taxi service to and from the hotel, but travelers continued to avoid the hostelry. Sydnor eventually abandoned the hotel project and returned to the house to use as his residence.
Sydnor remained in Galveston only until the close of the Civil War. A passionate defender of secession, Sydnor and a committee of fellow merchants attempted to intercept Governor Sam Houston at the docks when he arrived in 1861 to explain his anti-secessionist position to the Galvestonians. Houston brushed Sydnor aside declaring that he had "never run from a fight," and delivered his address unmolested. Sydnor was commissioned as a colonel in the Galveston militia at the outbreak of the war. He was charged with the fortification of Galveston against Northern attack. Col. Sydnor was dispatched to Richmond to acquire cannons for the Galveston waterfront and upon completion of his mission, resigned from his commission. For the duration of the war, he engaged in blockade running, carrying Texas cotton between Union gunboats to Caribbean ports.

In 1866 Sydnor dissolved their partnership with his own trading firm and went to New York to act as a trading agent for Galveston cotton interests. He liquidated most of his Galveston holdings, and it is thought that he sold the Powhatan House to Mr. Bolton at that time. Sydnor did not return again to Texas until 1869, when, on a visit to his son at Lynchburg, Texas, he died.

After purchasing the Powhatan House, Mr. Bolton made several attempts to operate schools and a military academy in the house's spacious rooms. All of his efforts proved unsuccessful, however, and he converted the Powhatan to use as his private home.

In 1881 the house was purchased by the City of Galveston for use as the island's first orphanage. In 1893 a new orphanage was built and the Powhatan House became the property of Mrs. Carolyn Willis Ladd. Mrs. Ladd had the house moved from its original location between 21st and 22nd streets, and M and N avenues, to its present location between 34th and 35th streets. Under the supervision of the architect W. H. Tyndell, the house was divided into three sections and remodeled into three separate houses on contiguous lots. Each house was elevated on a ten-foot-high brick basement containing a kitchen and servants' quarters. The central portion continued to be known as the Powhatan House or the "Main House." Tyndell extensively modified the interiors, replacing all the original mantels with Victorian pressed-brick facings, new staircases, and a variety of diamond pane and two over two-light windows.

In 1903 Charles Veddor, a prominent Galveston cotton merchant purchased the central portion, or main house, which had been only slightly damaged by the disastrous flood and hurricane of 1900. The Veddor family occupied the house at the time of the 1907 grade-raising, a project which literally built up the city an additional nine feet, as protection against future flooding. The Veddors lost their basement kitchen and breakfast room to the inundation of sand pumped from Galveston Bay. The Veddors added a wing at the rear of the house to replace the buried rooms.

Veddor was appointed by Theodore Roosevelt as the United States Cotton Commissioner and was a member of the Galveston Cotton Exchange, which, together with the Wharf Commission, virtually controlled all of Galveston's trading activity.

Veddor's wife, Florence, was the grand-daughter of General George Heath Flood, who had been U.S. Minister to the Republic of Texas in 1839.

Ironically, in 1927, the British government leased the house for use as its consulate. The home of the slave merchant who had so vigorously flaunted the British restrictions on the slave trade was turned over to the British consul as his diplomatic establishment. In 1935 the Veddors sold the house to J. W. Oschman, who occupied it until 1960 when the Forrest Dyer family purchased it.

The Powhatan House became the property of the Galveston Garden Club, its current owners, in 1965. The Garden Club has restored the house to its 1893 appearance including Victorian furnishings and a garden planted in oleanders. The house was among the first of a series of successful restorations in Galveston which have become the focus of an active tourist industry, replacing the city's waning trading activity. The Garden Club opens the house to the public from May to August and conducts special tours by appointment throughout the rest of the year.