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2004 Terry Winner - Dewberry Plantation, Bullard, TX
"Myrtle-Vale," the Colonel John Dewberry Plantation House
14007 FM 346 West
Bullard, TX 75757
903-825-9000
website http://www.dewberry.com
Email: ken@dewberryplantation.com
Directions: From Hwy 69, turn west on FM 344, drive through Bullard and continue four miles. Then turn right on FM 346 at Teasleville and proceed one-half mile.
Open for tours by appointment Monday through Sunday, except Thanksgiving and Christmas. For groups smaller than ten, the cost is $8 for adults, $5 for children 6 to 18, and $7 for seniors, with children 5 and under admitted free. For groups of ten or more, the rate is $6 for adults, $4 for children 6 to 18, and $6 for seniors. The site can be rented for $100 per hour, with special rates for weddings and receptions. An area west of the house accommodates parties of up to 250.
OTHER AWARDS: Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1962; National Register of Historic Places, 1971; Historic Tyler Preservation Award, 2002.
HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE: Colonel John Dewberry emigrated to Texas from Chatham County, Georgia, at the age of 41. A prosperous trader, he settled on Saline Prairie in 1835, east of the Neches Saline, where Native Americans gathered salt. In the Cherokee War, troops with Thomas J. Rusk and Edward Burleson camped at Dewberry's en route to the Battle of the Neches, where engagements on July 15-16, 1839, led to the defeat of 700 to 800 tribesmen under Chief Bowles. About 500 Texans participated, including Rusk, Burleson, Kelsey Douglass, David G. Burnet, David S. Kaufman, John H. Reagan, and Albert Sidney Johnson. Some, if not all, stayed at Dewberry's on the way. A house stood on the site as early as 1846, for it served as a polling place in the 1846 election. Once the frontier was pacified, Dewberry became one of the earliest commercial farmers in Smith County. A substantial slaveowner, he planted cotton and built the first gin in the county. In 1852, Dewberry began the construction of this mansion, which he called "Myrtle-Vale" for the crepe myrtles that lined its front walk. The house is a rare East Texas example of a two-story, antebellum, Greek Revival plantation home.
HISTORY OF THE STRUCTURE: The house at "Myrtle-Vale" is framed with huge beams held together by pegs and square nails. The floors are heart pine, and the siding is cypress. The brick was fired on-site. A square-columned, two-story porch, wide center halls, and massive chimneys tie the building to Greek Revival traditions that were common elsewhere in the South. The interior detailing is simple, but the proportions and scale of the home clearly marked it as a mansion by the standards of the frontier. The front doors and entry measure about seventeen feet across. A steep staircase rises in the center hall. Excluding halls, there are three downstairs rooms and two above. A sheet-metal downspout bearing the date 1854 (seen in old photographs) documents when the mansion was finished. In the mid-1930s, a number of original outbuildings still existed, but none remain, nor do any of the slave quarters that formerly stood across the road from the house. Dewberry died in 1877, leaving the plantation to Mrs. Mariah Smith. Her heirs sold it in 1908 to a family named Edwards who kept it until 1999, when Julius A. "Andy" Bergfeld bought it.
RESTORATION: By the end of the twentieth century, the big house at "Myrtle-Vale" was a shambles. Little had been spent on its upkeep for many years, and it was in drastic need of repairs. The house was literally near a point of collapse and could barely be seen through the tangled grounds. Bergfeld's grandmother had inspired him with a love of Southern history as a child, but his own family's home had been lost years ago. The plight of "Myrtle-Vale" gave him an opportunity to save, if not something from his own family, at least a relic of the Old South. That history became even more meaningful as he learned more about Dewberry's life and times. Bergfeld spent months cleaning the grounds, tearing out debris, and making whatever improvements he could before summoning professionals. Repairs to the exterior began in the summer of 2001. All the brickwork was repaired, and the house leveled. Cedar shakes replaced the tin roof. Bergfeld matched missing siding with cypress lumber custom-cut in Baker, Louisiana. He replaced 160 missing window panes with antique glass from New Orleans. All three porches had to be rebuilt, and he restored missing details such as railings. Inside, the house was plumbed and wired, with central heat and air. Hardly any original plaster could be saved. Its original composition of horsehair, lime, and sand was impractical to replicate, but the new plaster looks like what was there before. He refinished the floors and added canvas-backed replica wallpaper in a couple of rooms. Most of the original hardware remains, with new security locks. The final cost of the restoration totaled a little over $190,000. Bergfeld, with help from his wife Shawn, was able to control costs by doing much of the work himself. Restoring "Myrtle-Vale" was a labor of love for him, which we of the Terry Committee are happy to applaud.
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