Behind the walls of Texas’ first mansion

by Bartee Hailie

On Feb. 4, 1896, three days after her drunk of a husband threatened her with a butcher knife, Matilda Brown Sweeney moved back home to Ashton Villa where she would spend the rest of her life. The story of Texas’ famous first mansion begins with a New York runaway named James Moreau Brown. On his third or fourth escape attempt in the late 1830’s, the adventuresome adolescent kept going, working his way across the Deep South until he landed at Galveston during the last days of the Texas Republic. Brown, in his midtwenties by then, arrived with money in his pockets and property to his name. With a partner he soon decided was dead weight, he opened a hardware store on Market Street in 1847. The next year Brown married 16 year old Rebecca Ashton Rhodes, who was born in Philadelphia but grew up on the island. The couple wasted no time starting a family as the bride gave birth to the first of their five children ni December 1848 six months after the April wedding.

To view more please log in or subscribe to the digital edition.