Plantation Homes Dallas

Photograph, side perspective of the Roseland Plantation Home. Image courtesy of Tim and Carolyn West Photography. Image available on the Internet and included in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.

ROSELAND PLANTATION HOME. Roseland Plantation Home, the antebellum plantation house of Burwell H. Hambrick, is located five miles east of Edom in southeast Van Zandt County. Hambrick, who moved to Texas from Virginia, purchased a 500-acre tract from Thomas R. Buford on April 9, 1852. He later purchased an additional 2, 500 acres. Construction on the two-story Greek Revival house, erected near the site of a Cherokee battle of 1839, was completed by 1854. The house is made of wood with pegged mortise and tenon construction. Bricks for the fireplaces and foundation were made by hand on the plantation. Hambrick built a church and a private racetrack nearby. The house, located halfway between Dallas and Shreveport, served at times as a stagecoach stop and a change station for horses. In early years it also served as an area social center. After the Civil War Hambrick deeded much of the property to his former slaves, and part of the plantation land became the foundation for the Red Land High School and community. In 1868 Hambrick formed a partnership with George Humphrey to establish a cotton-thread mill in Tyler. The mill burned in 1869, and Hambrick, reduced to poverty, died a year later. William S. Herndon held title to the house until 1919, after which several black families lived there. In 1954 Mrs. W. C. Windsor, wife of a Tyler oilman, bought the house, along with 200 acres, renamed it Roseland, and restored it. In 1966 the Texas Historical Commission placed a marker on the site. Various stories and legends are associated with the house. The upper east bedroom is said to have been the scene of the murder of a young girl, and spectral horsemen are rumored to visit the building. The historical marker indicates the place where, according to local lore, the groans of Chief Bowl, who died in the battle of 1839 on the property, can be heard. In the 1880s one Peter Hill is said to have taken baskets of gold from the house.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Van Zandt County History Book Committee, History of Van Zandt County (Dallas, 1984).

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