What truth is there to the notion that a house retains the characteristics of its owner?
In the case of the Neale House, home of the 19th century renegade William Neale (1807-1896), the answer is plenty. Like its namesake, the oldest known house in Brownsville and home of the Brownsville Art League has both mercurial and creative qualities.
For the second time in its 154-year history, the Neale House will be moved to a new location in Brownsville.
Marry Eddington, president of the Board of Regents for the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art, said, The Neale House will be relocated to Linear Park just after the museum is completed, probably sometime next fall. The structure originally stood at 14th Street between East Washington and East Adams before being moved in 1950 to its current location on Neale Drive.
She added that the process will be extremely delicate because the two original chimneys must be encased to transport. Once the move is complete, repairs will be made to restore the house to its original state.
William Neale would be pleased. An avid painter, trumpeter, and writer, the former Brownsville mayor was nothing if not capricious.
At age 13 or 14, Neale ran away from his home in Sussex, England, and joined a cargo vessel that eventually turned into a gun ship in the Mexican War of Independence. Soon after, he found himself in Veracruz serving briefly in the Mexican army where he befriended Pedro de Ampudia, a latter day general in the U.S.-Mexico War.
During the battle of Palo Alto, Neale allowed Ampudia to use his residence in Matamoros to be used as a hospital for Mexican troops. After the war, he moved across the Rio Grande and is believed to be the first person to move across the border after the resolution of the conflict in 1848.
Just 10 years later, he served as Brownsvilles mayor before enlisting in the Confederate army as a second lieutenant. During that time Neale was fighting on the same side as Brownsvilles founder Charles Stillman, an American who only years before had escaped Mexican capture in the U.S.-Mexico War. After the Confederacys defeat, Neale eventually moved back to Brownsville for a second term as mayor. His memoirs, preserved in the book Century of Conflict, are one of few primary sources of early Brownsville history that still exist.
wpmcmichael@freedom.link.com
