Lorenzo Dow Heaton House

307 South Bridge Street

 

On March 24, 1875, William Gamble sold the old Valentin Garcia lot to Lorenzo D. Heaton for $300. Heaton was born on March 4, 1839 in Potsdam, St. Lawrence County, New York. He worked as a clerk in a drug store for a number of years prior to leaving New York for Texas. He arrived in Port Lavaca in 1860 when only twenty-one years old.

 

In 1870, L. D. Heaton married Miss Mary Virginia Randall, moving to Victoria in September of that year. Mrs. Heaton was affectionately known as "Mollie." The exact date of the construction of the Heaton house is unknown, but work might have begun shortly after the property was purchased in 1875. There is some speculation that the house dates from 1877.

 

It is probable that the original structure was two-story; two rooms upstairs, two rooms downstairs, a stair hall, plus a one-story kitchen off the southwest corner (rear) of the house. The earliest tax records in existence for 1880 shows a valuation of $2,000.

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You can learn more about this home and the families that have lived here in Volume II of Historic Homes of Victoria, available here online through our SHOP or at the Victoria Preservation, Inc. office.