The House of the Seasons is proud to announce it has loaned several pieces of furniture to the Bullock History Museum in Austin, TX through 2018. The furniture, which will be part of the museum’s exhibit on Texas plantation furniture, comes from the Wyalucing plantation home in Marshall, Texas.

The House of the Seasons acquired the furniture from the Dorothy Morris estate. Morris had previously acquired the furniture from the heirs of Anna and Elkanah Greer in 1970. Elkanah Greer was a general in the Confederate States Army.

Built in 1849 for Beverly L. Holcombe, the Wyalucing plantation house was a two-story brick home designed to resemble a Grecian temple, with columns on all four sides. During the civil war, the house became the headquarters for the Trans-Mississippi Agency of the Confederate Post Office Department. In May 1865 it was also where General Kirby Smith met with Senior Confederate Officers to discuss options after the surrender of Lee’s army at Appomattox. The general and the officers would have used this furniture during the meeting.

In addition to being an important Civil War location, the Wyalucing house was the marriage site of several of Beverly L Holcombe’s daughters. Most prominent among these marriage was that of Lucy Holcombe to Francis Pickens.

Immediately following their marriage in 1858, Lucy and Francis Pickens moved to St. Petersburg, Russia where Francis Pickens became the American Ambassador. Renowned as the most beautiful woman in the South, Lucy quickly became a favorite of the Czar Alexander II and Czarina Maria Alexandrovna. When Lucy’s daughter Doushka – a name meaning “little darling” – was born, the Czar and Czarina became her godparents.

The Pickens family returned to America in 1860, whereupon Francis was elected as Governor of South Carolina. In this role, Pickens led the state into secession from the United States. Lucy played an important role too. It is not only rumored that she lit the cannon that fired the first shot at Fort Sumpter, but it was her face printed on the confederate $100 bill. One of these bills will also be on display at the Bullock History Museum.

Newspaper clipping from the Dallas Morning News 1961; article by Frank X. Tolbert

House of the Seasons’ preservation efforts continue with acquisition of four oil paintings once owned by home’s original Epperson family

Jefferson, Texas – After more than a century, four recently acquired and restored oil paintings once again hang on the walls of the House of the Seasons, which is their original home.

(click painting for a larger view)

The four paintings are reunited with seven others that belonged to the House of the Seasons’ original owners, the Eppersons. Nineteenth-century Texas legislator, lawyer, railroad man, and civic leader, Col. Benjamin H. Epperson, acquired these eleven paintings for his family home built in 1872.

Epperson died in 1878, and the family stayed in the house until 1906, when they moved to Ada, Oklahoma, and took all the original furnishings with them. Richard Collins acquired the house in 1973, and acquired most of the original furnishings the next year from the estate of Jeannie Epperson, Ben’s daughter, who died at age 94 in December of 1973.

Earlier this year, Collins was contacted by Bill Thompson of Dallas, who had lived in Ada most of his life. Mr. Thompson’s father was a close friend of Jeannie and had taken care of her for years. He acquired the paintings from Jeannie in the 1960s to assist her financially.

Collins was able to purchase the paintings and commissioned Stashka Star of Dallas to restore them.

Two of the paintings are similar in design and subject to several of the other original paintings in the house, but the other two are lithographs that have been painted over. Painting lithographs was common in the mid 1800s.

The House of the Seasons recently acquired a painting by Alonzo Perez, a Spanish artist who lived rom 1853 to 1929. It is a turn-of-the-century impressionist painting of a young woman with a courtier. The painting was restored to its original brilliance by the talented Stashka Star, Art Conservator at Stashka Art Conservation, Inc.