Starr Family Home State Historic Site - History

Starr Family Home State Historic Site covers 3.1 acres in Marshall, Harrison County. The site was given to the state in 1976, and additional land was donated in 1982; the park was opened to the public for day-use only in 1986. The Starr family continued to occupy the estate until it became a state park in 1985.

History: Starr Family Home State Historic Site captures the 150-year history of the Starr family and four generations of construction and adaptations to the site from the late-19th through the late-20th century. The site is particularly associated with Dr. James Harper Starr, a prominent official during the Republic and first statehood periods, and with his son, James Franklin Starr, a leading land developer later in the 19th century.

Starr Family Home State Historic Site captures the 150-year history of the Starr family and four generations of construction and adaptations to the site from the late-19th through the late-20th century. The site is particularly associated with Dr. James Harper Starr, a prominent official during the Republic and first statehood periods, and with his son, James Franklin Starr, a leading land developer later in the 19th century.

James Harper Starr attended an academy in Worthington, Ohio, taught school near Columbus, taught himself medicine, and in 1830 became a member of the first class of the Reformed Medical Society of the United States of America, located in Worthington. Dr. Starr moved to Georgia in 1832 and practiced medicine at McDonough and later at Pleasant Grove.

Dr. Starr's brother, Franklin J. Starr, was the first of the Starr family to come to Texas; he arrived from Ohio in 1834. He established a residence in Nacogdoches after the Runaway Scrape during the Texas Revolution and for a short time was a law partner of William Barret Travis. Franklin Starr practiced law in Nacogdoches until he died in July of 1837, seven months after his brother Dr. James Harper Starr moved there.

On December 14, 1837, the Texas Congress established the General Land Office and President Sam Houston selected Dr. Starr as president of the board of land commissioners and receiver of the land dues for Nacogdoches County. In 1839 Dr. Starr was named Secretary of the Treasury by Texas President Mirabeau Lamar. For financial reasons he asked permission to resign as treasurer on May 30, 1839, and his resignation was accepted on August 31, 1840.

In 1844, in partnership with Nathaniel C. Amory, Dr. Starr became a land agent for those who exchanged land for Republic of Texas debts. Due to Starr's reputation as an authority on Texas land laws, the agency grew and served as a bureau for advertising Texas land to prospective settlers from all parts of the United States. Starr and Amory remained partners until 1858, when Amory returned to Boston.

After the Congress of the Confederate States passed the Sequestration Act in 1861, Dr. James Harper Starr was appointed to act as a receiver in the enforcement of the laws and served until 1864. In 1863 he was appointed Confederate agent for the postal service west of the Mississippi River.

Dr. Starr opposed secession and the election of delegates to the Secession Convention, but like many other Texans supported the Texas Confederate state government. His public career ended with the surrender of the Southern armies in 1865.

His sons, Frank and Amory Starr, and son-in-law, Henry W. Raguet, volunteered for Confederate service and served in the New Mexico campaign. Frank Starr participated in the battle of Galveston and served in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. He held the rank of major at the end of the war, then attended the University of Virginia.

Frank Starr married Clara Fry Clapp in New Orleans in 1868. That same year, Dr. Starr formed James H. Starr and Son, a land and banking agency, in Marshall, one of the first banks in Texas. In 1870, the family moved its home and business from Nacogdoches to Marshall, a thriving town with railroad connections. Dr. Starr purchased a house known as Rosemont on the southwest side of town. Eventually Rosemont would become part of a family compound that included several homes. (Only a four-room portion of Rosemont remains today.)

Frank Starr purchased the southwest corner of the compound from his parents and in 1870 built his majestic home Maplecroft, with financial assistance from his father-in-law, George Clapp. Frank Starr designed Maplecroft in the transitional Italianate style, relying heavily on advice from his father-in-law. Much of the design of the Starr home has a feel of New Orleans, reflecting the influence of the Clapps and Starr's sister Pamela, who had lived in the Garden District of New Orleans. The house design was also influenced by the German builder, Mr. Witkorn, and an architect from New Orleans named Hilger. Mr. Miller, a northern builder raising cotton in Marshall, was the builder and the draftsman of the final plans.

Maplecroft originally consisted of four rooms upstairs and four rooms downstairs, with a separate kitchen and servant's room connected to the main house by a covered passageway. The wood frame, wood-sided house was finished with plaster inside. Local materials used in the house included the framing, siding, and brick, but the windows and glass, doors, cypress shingles, shutters, hardware, paints, plastering materials, stair railing and newel post, door bells, speaking tubes, lightning rods, moldings, carpet and matting, and even the kitchen stove were shipped from New Orleans. A cast-iron bathtub and iron vases came from St. Louis.

Frank Starr, his wife Clara, and their six daughters all lived at Maplecroft. Starr modified a slave's quarters into a schoolhouse for the instruction of his daughters and added a barn and other outbuildings to the compound. As each of the six daughters married, Starr built her a home in the immediate area. Seven structures remain at the Starr Family Home State Historic Site.

By the end of 1873, Frank was managing the family land and money while Frank's younger brother, Amory, handled the land agency. The Starr family continued to acquire and sell valuable lands that the State of Texas had sold as incentives for railroad construction. Dr. Starr spent the later part of his life at his home in Marshall, and continued to advise clients on Texas land until his death in 1890.

After the death of her husband Frank in 1902, Clara Clapp Starr continued to occupy Maplecroft until her death in 1925. The house then passed to her daughter, Ruth Starr Blake, who occupied it until her death in 1969. Mrs. Blake modernized Maplecroft in 1937-1938, refurbishing it and the other buildings, and added colonial revival elements to Maplecroft and the schoolhouse, which had become a laundry. During Mrs. Blake's ownership, Maplecroft continued to shelter treasured family heirlooms and also became a showcase for Mrs. Blake's extensive decorative arts collections.

In 1969, the house became the property of Clara Starr Pope Willoughby, the only surviving great-granddaughter of James Harper Starr, then a resident of San Angelo, who maintained it as a second home. In 1976, TPWD acquired the property through a life estate agreement with Mrs. Willoughby, who survived until 1985. Starr Family Home State Historic Site opened in 1986.

Maplecroft is larger than Rosemont and is the primary focus of the Starr Family Home State Historic Site. Maplecroft is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Visitors to the Starr Family Home State Historic Site will see a variety of decorations and furnishings ranging in age from the latter part of the nineteenth century through the 1960s. One of the more interesting displays contains the many pieces of china and figurines collected by Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Willoughby throughout their long lives. During Christmas visitors can see the house as it may have been decorated through the years.