Hendrickson-Caskey House

The Hendrickson-Caskey House is on land platted in the original town of Salado (Maps # 1 -3) and appears on the available tax records by 1871. One of few modest vernacular buildings within the boundary of Salado multiple resource group, Historic Resources of Salado (N. R. 1983), it is named for its two most prominent occupants, John Hendrickson, a stone and brick mason, and John Coffey Caskey, a citizen active in the Salado Grange. The Hendrickson-Caskey House represents the box and board method of construction and is one of the few entire board and batten historical homes in Bell County. Significant as the home of a locally recognized master builder and a prominent local civic leader, it is a remaining example of modest vernacular architecture within the Historic Resources of Salado (N. R. 1983) and is nominated under Criterion C, at the local level of significance.

Permanent Anglo settlement of Salado began in the 1850s when the State of Texas awarded Benjamin Bowles one labor of land (177 acres). Subsequently, in 1853-1854, Colonel E. Sterling C. Robertson, son of the impresario Sterling C. Robertson, settled on Salado Creek. Hermon Aiken purchased the 177 acres from John P. Bowles, Benjamin Bowles's heir, in 1859 and 1860. He surveyed and platted Salado, donating some of this land to be sold to raise revenue for Salado College, the history of which, is closely intertwined with that of Salado. Upon Aiken's death in 1860, the management of this land went to the Trustees of Salado College. The land was donated for the college and 90 acres surveyed by Hermon Aiken were auctioned by the Salado College Joint Stock Company in December of 1859. The College opened in a wooden building in 1860 and with the cornerstone laid later that year.

John Hendrickson, a master stone and brick mason, born in St. Joseph Missouri, moved to Salado in c. 1866, after working on the construction of the first Texas State Capitol 1852-53 and the General Land Office 1856. He is credited with work on several county courthouses (unidentified at this time) and was Coryell County Commissioner between 1860 and 1862. Apparently drawn to Salado for the construction of Salado College, he also built the Barton House in Salado 1866, Twelve Oaks in Salado 1867-69 and assisted in the construction of the wire cable suspension footbridge, 1870, over Salado Creek. This bridge considered the first of its kind in the southwest was destroyed by a flood in 1913.

Tax records of 1871 show that Hendrickson purchased Lots 19 and 20, Block 15B from E. Sterling C. Robertson, President of Salado Joint Stock Company. An increase in recorded taxes indicates that the house was on this property by 1871. The Hendrickson Caskey House is in view of Twelve Oaks and it is conceivable that Hendrickson built his own residence shortly after the construction of Twelve Oaks. Tax records reveal improvements in 1871-72. The addition of a room on the north side of the house was a likely response to the spatial needs of Hendrickson's growing family. Residing with Hendrickson, were at least five of the six children from Hendrickson's first marriage to Rosina D. Bone (born in Cherokee County), who died in Salado in 1867. Hendrickson married his second wife, Jane Massey Karnes (born in Ohio) in 1869 and they had two children in 1869 and 1872. A skilled young draftsman and carpenter named Henry Karnes, a relative of Jane's was also living with the family at the time of the 1870 Census. Karnes apparently worked as a mason's apprentice to Hendrickson and later married his daughter, Martha Elizabeth. In adulthood, Karnes was a construction contractor on the Lon Curtis and Dr. Taylor Hudson mansions in Belton.

Hendrickson's eldest son, W. R., also living with his father, likely helped with the construction of Salado College and other projects. He is known to have worked on Salado College on two occasions and was later appointed Inspector of Masonry and Buildings by Governor James E. Ferguson in 1915. This appointment may have, in part, served to return a favor from years before, when John Hendrickson built James E, Ferguson's widowed mother a double chimney, without charging her for his work. Other works to W. R.'s credit were the O.K. Burwitz Building in Temple, Landon Hotel in San Angelo, and "whole blocks of substantial masonry buildings" in Miles, Texas where W. R. lived in the first years of the 20th century. A foundation stone carved with "W. R." remains on the Hendrickson-Caskey property.
John Hendrickson sold the Hendrickson-Caskey House property to John Coffey Caskey in 1875 and spent his last years in Belton, where he and Jane died within one month of each other, in 1884. Hendrickson left a trail of exceptionally constructed buildings in Travis, Coryell, and Bell Counties, with the Bell County Jail 1884, the final building to his credit.

John Coffey Caskey (J. C.) and Adaline Tomlinson Caskey were pioneers of Williamson County, where J. C. served as justice of the peace and county commissioner. He traded in real estate and paid taxes on Lots South 1/2 18, 19, 20, Block 15B, Salado, Bell County, Texas from 1875 through 1882. Apparently only holding it for investment, in 1882, he sold the subject property to his son William Jefferson (W. J.) Caskey.

W. J. Caskey and Sarah Rebecca Chapman Caskey, moved to Salado to provide their seven children with education at Salado College. The Caskey's large family would also have stretched the capacity of the home and the second alterations, including a rear addition and application of horizontal siding over the original board and batten, are thought to have been completed in 1893.

As a farmer and charter member of the Salado Grange No. 1-Patrons of Husbandry, W. J. served as an agent for the Grange store in Salado and was among the 117 active members in 1878. The Grange, formally the Patrons of Husbandry, was a national organization serving farm families' political, marketing, educational, and social needs. Salado Grange No. 1, formed in 1873, was the first Grange established in Texas in a movement that grew quickly on a community level. The Grange was effective until about 1890 when it began to decline.

W. J. Caskey was also active in establishing Thomas Arnold High School on the same campus after Salado College closed, and was a Mason and a member of lodges in Gabriel Mills, Florence, and Salado. Upon the death of both Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Caskey in 1909, the First Baptist Church of Salado (of which the Caskeys had been members) purchased the house for its first parsonage. The church owned the property that apparently continued to serve as the parsonage until 1924 when the church sold the property.

The Hendrickson-Caskey House was subsequently owned by five more parties, often serving as a rental property. The third remodeling of the house, made in 1939, included the enclosure of the rear porch for a bedroom. When the current owners purchased the house in 1978, the property had greatly deteriorated. A rehabilitation was undertaken in 1988.