Galveston Historic Overnights: The Dressmaker's Corner
Built in 1914 by C.H. Anderson.
Located on what would've been a busy thoroughfare, even in the early 20th century, the site of this two-story structure located on Broadway Avenue, or Avenue J, was once home to two humble cottages miraculously spared by the Great Fire of 1885. And while the property that exists here today was built in 1914 by C.H. Anderson, this corner was the domain of an unmarried German dressmaker and her sisters for over 40 years.
Parts of the owner biographies below were researched by Jami Durham, historian at the Galveston Historical Foundation.
About the Original Owners
If you look next door to the present-day property, you'll notice a small cottage that appears to be much older than the 1914 home presently on the corner. According to county deed records, this cottage was owned by Sarah Behrman, born in Germany in 1837, who purchased this lot in 1875. However, city directories show that Sarah resided here as early as 1872 with her widowed mother, Rebecca, and her sister, Eliza or "Lizzie." Both Lizzie and Sarah were dressmakers who lived and worked out of this cottage. By 1900, their mother had passed and it was only Lizzie and Sarah living at this address, both in their 60s and never married. It appears that in 1910, their widowed oldest sister, Theresa Aschoff, moved in, which may have prompted Sarah to buy the corner lot next to hers (where this property currently sits).
It's unclear whether Sarah or one of her sisters occupied the corner cottage between 1910 and 1913. Sadly, both Lizzie and Theresa died in 1912 just seven months apart. With memories of her sisters everywhere, it's no wonder that Sarah paid the note on the house and sold it for $600 to Charles Harper Anderson by January of the following year. One year after its purchase, C.H. Anderson demolished the house to build the existing property.
Sarah, perhaps heartbroken after the loss of her sisters, relocated to Houston by 1915, and died in 1920 at age 87. According to their death certificates, all three sisters' cause of death was listed as senility, an obsolete term once used in this context to connote loss of mental or physical abilities due to old age.
A Cottage Spared
The Great Fire of 1885
One wouldn't think a city could have two disasters so famously devastating they deserved the prefix, "great," and yet, just 15 years before the deadly storm of 1900, an enormous fire destroyed hundreds of homes in Galveston's prominent East End. A grisly account of the fire, like the one pictured right, was published in newspapers across the country and even internationally in the days following the event. There was no question of its newsworthiness: some of the wealthiest homes in one of the wealthiest cities in America at the time had been destroyed.
Later Owners
Charles Harper Anderson purchased the corner lot from the elderly Sarah Behrman in 1913 and promptly demolished the cottage that existed there to build the property that still stands here today.
Born in 1875 at the Locust Hill Estate in Ivy, Virginia, Anderson was the great-great-nephew of Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis and Clark fame), who was also born at Locust Hill. Anderson moved to Galveston in 1894, passed the bar in 1901, and soon began handling land-related legal matters for J.C. League (namesake of nearby League City). He continued to serve the family's estate after League's death.
When he moved into the newly built property on Broadway, Charles and his wife Caroline had two daughters and a son.