The 1847 Powhatan House
The Powhatan House, located in Galveston, Texas, was built as the home of John S. Sydnor, a prominent cotton merchant, early mayor of Galveston, financier, and slave dealer. The Powhatan House is one of the oldest existing structures in Galveston and is an unusually sophisticated example of Greek Revival architecture in Texas. The construction of the Powhatan House and its change in use over many years of occupancy mirrors the history of Galveston’s development and eventual decline as Texas’ leading mercantile and cultural center.
The house's builder, Col. John Seabrook Sydnor, was an early exponent of the importation of the “cotton culture” to Texas. Many Southerners regarded Texas as the South’s frontier, where rich lands were ripe for exploitation of cotton cultivation and the consequential institution of the slave system. Col. Sydnor migrated to Galveston from his native Hanover County, Virginia in 1838. Recognizing that Galveston was the major port of entry for all of Texas’ trade and immigration, he invested extensively in real estate and formed the J.S. Sydnor & Co. cotton merchants, one of Galveston’s leading cotton wholesalers until 1866. By 1840 Sydnor had been elected to the city board of aldermen and had brought his family from Virginia.
Sydnor found that Galveston’s burgeoning growth as Texas’ principal port offered ample opportunities for business diversification. In 1843 he built two steamboats to haul cotton from Brazos River plantations to Galveston. In 1845 he constructed the “Brick Wharf,” a 380-foot-long paved dockage and warehouse where cotton was stored for shipment on vessels consigned to Sydnor. He became the first man to commercially exploit the oyster beds of Galveston Bay, and he was involved with the manufacture of crushed lime and mortar from the discarded shells.
Sydnor was elected Mayor of Galveston in 1846 and he was instrumental in constructing a city market and organizing a chamber of commerce, to foster trade with other Gulf ports. Sydnor promoted a railroad causeway to link the island city to mainland trading centers, organized the city’s first police force and set up its original fire department. Under Sydnor’s mayoralty, the city’s first free public schools were opened, and comparatively liberal laws guaranteeing island slaves a percentage of hourly wages for “hired out” work and minor legal rights were drafted. Sydnor’s wife was active in the establishment of the city’s first Baptist church, and she persuaded Sydnor to donate money for its construction.
In 1847 Sydnor set about building his own home which was intended as a showplace for his recently acquired wealth. Sydnor dubbed the 24-room, Doric Greek Revival house “Powhatan,” after the Indian tribes in his native Virginia. The original Powhatan house had a six column portico, a characteristically Galvestonian raised basement or ground floor, and five acres of gardens planted with oleanders which were to become a feature of the island's gardens. The house itself was largely the result of Sydnor’s trading ventures. It was built of lumber, windows, sectional columns, hardware and well-crafted cyma recta mouldings shipped from Maine in the otherwise empty holds of cotton vessels returning from the northern ports. The fabrication of houses for Texans, in the seaports of Maine, was one of the dominant elements of trade balance between Galveston and the North. Two other houses still standing in Galveston, the Menard House and the Williams-Tucker House (see National Register submission “Samuel May Williams House” July 14, 1971) were also built of parts fabricated in Maine.
Col. Sydnor experimented with the operation of the Powhatan House as a hotel, but his efforts were thwarted by the house’s distance from the wharves and main business center. Sydnor resorted to offering a free surrey-taxi service to and from the hotel, but travelers continued to avoid the hostelry. Sydnor eventually abandoned the hotel project and returned the house to use as his residence. Sydnor remained in Galveston only until the close of the Civil War.
Sydnor’s slave market was said to have been the largest auction block west of New Orleans. Despite the demand for slaves on the newly-cleared Texas plantations, most Texas farmers didn’t have funds to buy slaves, and prices had inflated since the ban on importation from Africa. The Galveston slave auctions likely occurred occasionally, rather than as a daily enterprise. Sydnor and other dealers realized that without cheap labor the boom in Texas cotton, and the resultant prosperity of Galveston, would collapse. Sydnor, among other prominent Texans, is mentioned in an 1856 letter as having supported a scheme by filibusterer “General” William Walker to invade Nicaragua and found a colony which would import African slaves for Texas and the southwest. The effort was unsuccessful.
A defender of secession, Sydnor and a committee of fellow merchants attempted to intercept Governor Sam Houston at the docks when he arrived in 1861 to explain his anti-secessionist position to the Galvestonians. Houston brushed Sydnor aside declaring that he had “never run from a fight,” and delivered his address unmolested. Sydnor was commissioned as a colonel in the Galveston militia at the outbreak of the war. He was charged with the fortification of Galveston against Northern attack. Col. Sydnor was dispatched to Richmond to acquire cannons for the Galveston waterfront and upon completion of his mission, resigned his commission. For the duration of the war, he engaged in blockade running, carrying Texas cotton between Union gunboats to Caribbean ports.
In 1866 Sydnor dissolved partnership with his own trading firm and went to New York to act as a trading agent for Galveston cotton interests. He liquidated most of his Galveston holdings, and it is thought that he sold the Powhatan House to a Mr. Bolton at that time. Sydnor did not return again to Texas until 1869, when, on a visit to his son at Lynchburg, Texas, he died.
After purchasing the Powhatan House, Mr. Bolton made several attempts to operate schools and a military academy in the house’s spacious rooms. All of his efforts proved unsuccessful, however, and he converted the Powhatan to use as his private home.
The Homes Time as the Island City Protestant Orphans Home and Moving the House
In 1881 the house was purchased by the City of Galveston for use as an orphanage, known as the Island City Protestant Orphans Home. When Henry Rosenberg died in 1893, he bequeathed $30,000 to build a new orphanage adjacent to the Powhatan House. The new orphanage (now the Bryan Museum) was completed in 1896 and the Powhatan House, the building and not the land it sat on, we put up for sale. Terms of the sale stated that the "buildings to be moved off the grounds within 10 days from the date of purchase."
The Powhatan House became the property of Mrs. Carolyn Willis Ladd. Mrs. Ladd had the house moved from its original location between 21st and 22nd streets, and M and N avenues, to its present location between 34th and 35th streets. Under the supervision of the architect W.H. Tyndall, the house was divided into three sections and remodeled into three separate houses on contiguous lots. [marginalia: “incorrect Lebovich 8-15-75”] Each house was elevated on a ten foot high brick basement containing a kitchen and servants’ quarters. The central portion continued to be known as the Powhatan House or the “Main House.” Tyndall extensively modified the interiors, replacing original mantels with Victorian pressed-brick facings, new staircases, and a variety of diamond pane and two over two light windows.
In 1903 Charles Vedder, a prominent Galveston cotton merchant, purchased the central portion, or main house, which had been only slightly damaged by the disastrous flood and hurricane of 1900. The Vedder family occupied the house at the time of the 1907 grade-raising. The Vedders lost their basement kitchen and breakfast room to the inundation of sand pumped from Galveston Bay. The Vedders added a wing to the east of the house to replace the buried rooms.
Vedder was appointed by Theodore Roosevelt as United States Cotton Commissioner, and was a member of the Galveston Cotton Exchange, which, together with the Wharf Commission, virtually controlled all of Galveston’s trading activity. Vedder’s wife, Florence, was the granddaughter of General George Heath Flood, who had been U.S. Minister to the Republic of Texas in 1839.
In 1927, the British government leased the house for use as its consulate. In 1935 the Vedders sold the house to J.W. Oschman, who occupied it until 1960 when the Forrest Dyer family purchased it.
The Powhatan House became the property of the Galveston Garden Club, its current owners, in 1965. The Garden Club restored the house to its 1893 appearance including Victorian furnishings and a garden planted in oleanders. The house was among the first of a series of successful restorations in Galveston which became the focus of an active tourist industry, replacing the city’s waning trading activity. The Garden Club uses the house and grounds for its monthly meetings, for periodic fundraising sales and events, and educational programs. It opens the house for use by civic organizations and private events rentals.
