McCroskey, John, Cabin

The John McCroskey Cabin located in Brazoria County, Texas, represents the typical development of an antebellum Texas farmstead from a wilderness foothold to a prosperous cotton and sugar cane plantation. John McCroskey, the first owner of the property, was one of Stephen F. Austin's original 300 American colonists in Texas. A succession of the cabin's owners includes several other early colonists and historically prominent Texans.

John McCroskey received a grant to a league of land in Brazoria and Austin counties, in Texas' coastal lowlands, on August 18, 1824. Whether McCroskey actually built the cabin or merely cleared land for cultivation is uncertain. However, according to Austin's colonization rules, a clear title to the grant could not be established unless a dwelling was built, thus providing credence to the claim that McCroskey erected the original structure.

John McCroskey was neither an aristocratic planter nor a pauper. Like many of the first Texas colonists, he came seeking land and wider opportunities for economic and social advancement. He was a tanner by trade and in 1824 was elected the third lieutenant in a company of San Felipe, Texas, militia. In 1827 he married the widow of Eli Hunter, a fellow colonist, and neighbor. Hunter's daughter, McCroskey's stepdaughter, was the first girl born in the new colony.

In the winter of 1827, McCroskey met with other colonists and helped adopt resolutions supporting the Mexican government and condemning the Fredonian Rebellion, an abortive 1826 invasion of East Texas by the second wave of colonists. The invaders sought to displace the earlier colonists and defy the rule of the Mexican government. McCroskey and his neighbors feared reprisals by the Mexican government, as well as invasion by land-hungry Americans. The Fredonian Rebellion was one of the first signs of the political rift between Texas and Mexico.

McCroskey sold the cabin and property in 1825 to John Williams, another colonist. Williams leased the cabin to Joseph Reese, who carried out improvements on the property which he described in an 1826 letter. The letter is the earliest known written description of the cabin and describes it as a typical early Texas "double log house" with a central dog trot hall and loft above.

As the farm became more firmly established and the frontier receded, the cabin was enlarged by a succession of owners. "Lean-to" rooms were added at the rear of the cabin, a simple porch supported by cedar posts was built across the front and a brick cistern was installed. When a lively cotton and sugar cane trade enriched the Brazoria area from the middle to the end of the nineteenth century, the cabin acquired such amenities as factory-made doors, square columns for the porch, and factory or mill-made siding which sheathed the original cedar logs and their characteristic L-shaped rabbeted joints. Late in the nineteenth century, two over two-light windows were installed and the nearby cotton gin and sugar mill processed the ample harvests of the now thoroughly domesticated fields.

The long roster of owners, some of who remained for only a year or two, includes several figures intimately connected with Texas history:

1849-1850 Oliver Jones purchased the property from John Williams. Jones was the designer of the famous "Lone Star" Texas flag. A veteran of the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans, Jones was one of the state's first slaveholders and was a delegate to the 1845 annexation convention.

1850-1852 The land was acquired by R. J. Townes, the first district judge of Brazoria County and a signatory of the articles calling for Texas' secession from the Union.

1852-1858 c. K. Reese, the son of Joseph Reese, the second occupant of the cabin, bought the cabin and developed the farm into a full-scale cotton plantation which he dubbed "Cedar Lake." Reese was a veteran of the 1836 revolution against Mexico and was one of the few survivors of the ill-fated Mier Expedition, an 1842 invasion of Mexico by Texans. Reese died on the plantation in 1858 and is buried in the Cedar Lake cemetery, a mile north of the cabin.

1858-1861 Stephen Winston purchased the plantation and added a cotton gin and brick sugar mill. His family had extensive land holdings along the Texas coast and were among Texas' wealthiest planters.

1861-1877 Orange Swan, a farmer, acquired the property at a sale. He later sold the cabin--by now a greatly improved house-- to Major Asa Stratton. Stratton was a descendant of Stephen F. Austin's family and was a confederate war veteran. He died at the cabin in 1877 and is buried in the Cedar Lake cemetery.

After 1877, the plantation was dispersed among Stratton's various heirs. It was absorbed in the 1890s by the Brazos Valley Plantation Company - a large-scale commercial farming enterprise.

In 1890, the house itself was sold to Liberty S. McKinney, who in turn sold it to J. L. Boddeker in 1907.

In 1945, the McCroskey cabin was purchased by Mrs. R.E.L. Stringfellow Mrs. Stringfellow was the aunt of the present owner Mr. Percival T. Beacroft, and the descendant of several of Austin's original 300 colonists. The house has been occupied continuously since it was built. It has always been used as a dwelling and Mr. Beacroft intends to restore its own residence. He will retain the late nineteenth-century siding and dog-run enclosure, restoring the cabin to its appearance as a prosperous mid-nineteenth-century Texas plantation.