Jacob Nicholson House

Antonio and Rosalie Tomasino purchased two lots at the corners of Wilson and Victor Streets in Freedmen’s Town from H. J. Simpson for $850 in 1909. The Tomasino family had emigrated from Italy to the United States sometime between 1886 and 1901, originally residing in New Orleans before settling in Freedmen’s Town. Sometime between 1909 and 1912, the Tomasinos paid $1,875 to William H. Chryar, a Black carpenter, builder and contractor from New Orleans, to build several structures on the property, including a two-story house, a shotgun house, and three cottages. The Tomasinos moved into the upper story of the two-story house in 1917, the lower floor being used as a corner grocery store. This was a common configuration at the time, with numerous Italian immigrants operating corner grocery stores in Freedmen’s Town and living above or next to them. The Tomasinos resided in the neighborhood until 1944. Chryar, the carpenter, also lived in Freedmen’s Town for two years before decamping for Independence Heights, where he, too, opened a grocer’s shop.

The 1911-1912 City of Houston Director records the first occupant of the cottage at 1514 Wilson as one Amanda Price. Price remained for only one year, after which the house saw a succession of other renter-occupants until 1925, when Jacob Nicholson moved in. Nicholson, a Black native of Louisiana, and his wife Edith had eleven children and resided in the house for over 35 years. Despite the fact that the Nicholsons never owned the house, their extraordinarily long tenure as residents has resulted in their name being associated with the building. Jacob worked as a cotton compressor for the Magnolia Company for at least several years; Edith was a homemaker. Following Jacob’s death in 1961, his daughter Lula Belle Crawford moved into the house, staying there until 1999. Thus, two generations of Nicholson’s family occupied the house for a total of 74 years.

After Crawford moved out in 1999, the house remained vacant. The R. B. H. Yates Museum purchased the property on February 14, 2005. At that time, although the Tomasinos’ two-story residence was no longer extant, the lot still contained a workman’s cottage (1404 Victor) and two additional small houses (1406 Victor and 1512 Wilson). During this period, Freedmen’s Town had come under heavy redevelopment pressure and mysterious arson fires had become commonplace in the neighborhood. On February 28, 2005, a scant two weeks after the purchase by the Museum, the latter two small houses were abruptly destroyed by fire. The arsonist has never been formally identified.

1514 Wilson is a modest single-story, wood-frame, front-gabled folk house with a side hall. The interior consists of the hallway and three rooms running front-to-back to the right to the right of the hall. The interior walls are not conventional stud walls, but are instead constructed of inch-thick wainscoting boards providing no wall cavity for concealing electricity or plumbing, an unconventional technique occasionally seen in other modest folk houses of this era. Remnants of early linoleum flooring, believed to date to the time of the house’s construction, are to be found in the kitchen, and shredded fragments of cloth wall coverings still festoon the interior shiplap and wainscoting.

1514 Wilson was incorporated into the Freedmen’s Town National Register Historic District in 1985, and in response to the Yates Museum’s application, was designated a Protected Landmark by the City of Houston in 2008. Under the Yates Museum’s stewardship, the building has undergone significant stabilization, structural reinforcement and repairs. In 2009, a new foundation of concrete and steel piers was introduced, raising the structure higher above the ground in the process. In 2019 and 2020, extensive repairs to the attic framing were made by a volunteer carpentry crew supplemented with hired contractors, and a new historically-accurate Berridge metal-shingle roof similar to the one on the Rutherford B. H. Yates house was installed. The Museum is seeking additional funds in order to complete a restoration of the interior. The Nicholson house will become an archaeology field-school laboratory; Public Restrooms and an archaeology wash station will be housed in an adjoining new structure that is currently being designed.