Redwine House

Object: Redwine House
Date: AD 1870-2010
Context: Farmersville, Collin County, Texas, the Redwine site (41COL228)

In Texas, abandoned wooden country houses are familiar sights, often dilapidated, daylight shining through cracks in the walls and broken windows. Curious passersby have undoubtedly wondered what stories these old houses could tell or what the area was like when the house was new. Archeologists investigated just such a house a few miles north of the small town of Farmersville in Collin County, a Blackland Prairie farming community northeast of Dallas. The Redwine House was built by Joseph and Fannie Redwine in 1870 on a ridge overlooking tributaries that flow into the headwaters of Groves and Lee creeks. The modest farmhouse stood through dramatically changing ways of life, from the post-Civil War period until it collapsed in 2010.

The Redwine House is the oldest archeologically excavated farmstead in Collin County. Its material remains, from the bois d'arc timber foundation to the brick-patched sandstone chimney, echo the story of the farmers who lived there and the trajectory of economic development in the region.

In the nineteenth-century, especially after Texas' independence from Mexico (1836) and after Texas statehood (1845), Anglo-Americans flocked to Texas from the southern United States, seeking cheap land and opportunity. Almost half of Texas' population lived in the northeastern part of the state by the mid-1800s, and farming was the region's economic foundation. In 1846, the Collin County population was 150. Most of these were small family farmers like the Redwines. In the 1870s, railroads came to Collin County, providing transportation for crops to market. The railroads brought an economic boom to the region which persisted for 50 years, until the Great Depression. Throughout, small farms remained economically important, with over 6,000 family farms in the county by the 1920s. Their crops, including corn, wheat, cotton, and later, onions, were all transported by rail.

Joseph and Sarah Frances "Fannie" Wilcoxson Redwine were Anglo-Americans who moved to Texas from Virginia and Tennessee, respectively. The 1860 census records indicate that 15-year-old Fannie was living in Collin County with her parents that year, and 24-year-old Joseph was in nearby Fannin County, reportedly employed as a teacher. The two married, and in 1870 purchased their five-acre Collin County parcel. A small cabin was probably still standing on the parcel when the Redwines purchased the property, as the remnants of an older stone hearth and mudcat chimney were found by archeologists beneath an addition to the Redwine House.

The Redwines' modest three-room house (the later addition made it four, for a total of 745 square feet) is unique in northeast Texas for its bois d'arc (Maclura pomifera) timber foundation. The bois d'arc tree (French for bow-wood), a member of the mulberry family, is believed to have grown in the Red River area of northeast Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas prior to European colonization. It is among the finest woods for creating hunting bows, as it is both strong and flexible; it was used and traded for this purpose by the Caddo. Before the invention of barbed wire, bois d'arc was planted as a living fence, especially in the southern states, and is now found across most of the United States. Bois d'arc timbers were commonly cut into fenceposts and railroads ties. Posts and logs for these purposes were produced in the Farmersville area, making it a readily available material for local builders. Bois d'arc timbers were among the early exports from the region by rail.

The wood of the bois d'arc tree is strong, hard, and rot-resistant, making it an excellent and relatively common choice for house foundation piers. Bois d'arc is not typically a straight-growing tree, however, making its use for foundation beams, which require long timbers, unusual. In fact, the Redwine House is the only documented example of this in northeast Texas. Its beams were logs, roughly flattened on the upper surface and outside edge through expedient hewing, creating surfaces to which the walls and floor could be attached; bark clung to the unhewn sides. Half notches, also known as square notches, were used to join the beams (ranging between 4 feet 6 inches and 15 feet long) to create longer spans. After sawing and notching the timbers together, joiners drilled through the notched ends of the timbers and fastened them with wooden pegs.

The beams of the Redwine House were supported by piers, bois d'arc logs that had been sawed into short rounds and were usually positioned vertically. Piers supported the house beams, and the beams of an L-shaped back porch, and a front porch running the length of the house's west side (no beams there). Atop the beams were joists made of 2 x 6-inch pine lumber, to which the floorboards were nailed with iron square-cut nails. These cut nails were common before 1890, post-dating fully hand-forged nails but predating the emergence of wire nails—those round, soft steel nails that came to dominate the American nail market after 1890 and continue to be widely used today. Wire nails were also found in abundance in the Redwine House excavations, evidence of later repairs and modifications. Tongue and groove boards originally floored the house. Over the years, linoleum was placed over the wood floors—archeologists found at least three layers of linoleum in each room. Sheets of 1930s newspapers, including the Times Herald (Dallas) were found beneath or between some of the linoleum layers.

The Redwine's chimney was originally constructed with sandstone blocks mortared with sand aggregate which incorporated small pieces of amethyst and cobalt glass. The stone chimney's firebox was later repaired with commercial brick from the Globe Press Brick Company and the Texas Fire Brick Company, both manufacturing bricks in the Dallas area beginning ca. 1905-1906. Furthermore, the entire chimney above the firebox was rebuilt with commercial bricks. After natural gas was installed at the house, the firebox was plugged, nevermore to be used, and a decorative wood façade was placed in front of the firebox.

The Redwine House was constructed in the North Texas Plank Frame style, described by the archeologists who excavated the site, Cody Davis and colleagues, as, "a style in which planks were nailed directly to the outside of the foundation and roof beams, [without a] skeleton frame… The recording of the Redwine House extends the North Texas Plank Frame style back in time at least a decade."

Joseph and Fannie raised a daughter and son, Freddie and Bramwell "Bramble," in this house. After Joseph's death in 1880, Fannie, also known as "Puss," continued to live on the property until her death in 1936, raising her children and remarrying. Fannie was preceded in death by her adult children. She died without a will, and the Redwine property went to her twelve grandchildren. Bramwell's oldest living child, Roselle Redwine Hood, lived in the house with her husband and youngest brother until the 1960s. After a family dispute over the property ownership, it was ordered into receivership and sold to the Veterans Land Board of the State of Texas, who in turn sold it in 1970 to Billye and Lewis Ray Hartman, Jr. The Hartman's knew the Redwine descendants; Ray was born and raised in Farmersville and taught several Redwines while a public-school educator. The Hartman's knowledge of the family and local history helped reconstruct the Redwine House story.

The Redwine House is the only documented example of a structure with a bois d'arc foundation in North Central Texas. The strength of its foundation is likely why the house remained standing for 140 years, nearly 100 of them inhabited by the same family, through a changing Texas.

Credits

Written by Cody Davis, Principal Investigator at the Redwine site, and Emily McCuistion, TBH Assistant Editor, based on the Redwine site archeological excavation report (2012b). Cody has been involved in archeology professionally for the last 24 years. He became interested in archeology as a child, as his parents and grandfather were collectors, and collected artifacts on their family property in East Texas. During his graduate education at the University of Texas at Arlington, Cody became interested in historic archeology when he conducted his thesis project, which involved analysis of historic artifacts from the Berachah Rescue Home (41TR217) in Arlington, as well as archival research and oral history interviews. For the last 18 years, Cody has worked at AR Consultants, Inc. as a Project Archeologist, Principal Investigator, and Project Manager. AR Consultants President Dr. Alan Skinner and Principal Investigator and Faunal Specialist Katy Crater Gershtein also provided helpful feedback on the Redwine TBH Gallery piece.

Print Sources

Bush, Leslie L.
2014   Evidence for a Long-Distance Trade in Bois d'Arc Bows in 16th Century Texas (Maclura Pomifera, Moraceae). Journal of Texas Archeology and History, Volume 1, pp. 51-69.

Davis, Cody S., Nick Coleman, S. Alan Skinner, and Deborah Anglin
2012a   Archeological Survey of the Proposed Lake Texoma Outfall to Wylie Water Treatment Plant Raw Water Line: A Survey of Upland Divides and Lower Order Drainages of the Upper East Fork Watershed in Grayson, Fannin and Collin Counties, Texas. Cultural Resource Report 2012-25. AR Consultants, Inc. Richardson.

Davis, Cody S., Kathryn Pocklington, S. Alan Skinner
2012b   The Redwine Site (41COL228): A post-Civil War Farmstead in Collin County, Texas. Cultural Resource Report 2012-60. AR Consultants, Inc., Richardson.

Jordan, Terry G.
1978   Texas Log Buildings, A Folk Architecture. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Skinner, S. Alan and LeAnne Baird
1985   The Archaeology and History of Lake Ray Roberts, Settlement in a Marginal Zone, Volume III. Cultural Resources Report 1985-11. AR Consultants, Dallas.

Visser, Thomas D.
n.d.   Nails: Clues to a Building's History. Electronic resource, "https://www.uvm.edu/~tvisser/nails/NailHistoryVisser.pdf">https://www.uvm.edu/~tvisser/nails/NailHistoryVisser.pdf, accessed April 18, 2025.