By Jessica Gorman

When was it built? Who built it? These are common questions asked about historic homes and buildings. These questions can sometimes be hard to answer depending on the records and other sources available. 

Last week’s article focused on 508 Fort Avenue. This week, we’ll take a look at another home that may be a little bit older than originally thought, 614 Lewisville Road. This home has been owned by the late Dr. and Mrs. Gary Daniel since 1966. For many years, construction of this home has been attributed to D. W. Canfield. However, once again, the records suggest a different possibility. 

The accepted history of the house states that after the home was constructed by Canfield, he immediately sold it to John T. Hayes who then sold it to D. B. Hamilton. It is then implied that it remained in the family until 1965. 

When researching the history of a property, we search back through the land records to determine the chain of ownership. In the case of this property, it would seem that a record may be missing and that ownership of the property had previously only been searched back to the point of that potentially missing record that documents D. W. Canfield’s sale of the property. 

My recent interest in both 508 Fort Avenue and 614 Lewisville Road stems from my own genealogical research. If you follow this column, you may remember that I recently discovered my own family connections to Minden’s early history. As mentioned in last week’s article, W.C. Maples and John R. Evans owned the Fort Avenue home during the 1850s. John R. Evans and his daughter, Mary Margaret Evans Maples, were my distant cousins. Another cousin, Melvina Evans Garrison, married R. A. Lancaster who served as mayor of Minden for several terms. While researching the Lancasters, I came across a connection to the Lewisville Road property before it was owned by D. W. Canfield and before that potentially missing record comes into play. 

The property originally encompassed about three acres and extended from the corner of Lewisville Road and East and West to near where Beck Street intersects Lewisville. The earliest record I have found records the sale of the property by Edward Etter to E.D. Williams in 1842 for the sum of $225. This record also indicates that Etter had purchased the property from Reuben Drake at an earlier date. In 1851, Williams then sold the property to R. A. Lancaster for the slightly larger sum of $300. I hypothesize that it was Lancaster who may have had the home built. He sold the property to Alexander McIntyre in 1854. The transaction indicates a significant increase in the value of the property as McIntyre paid $1600 for the exact same three acres that Lancaster had purchased for only $300 just three years prior. 

The sale of the property from Alexander McIntyre to D. W. Canfield is the gap in the records. We know that McIntyre bought the property in 1854 and Canfield sold it in 1855 indicating that neither owned it for a significant amount of time. The property was bought by John T. Hayes in 1855 and then sold to D. B. Hamilton in 1859. Then in 1860, it passed back into the hands of the Lancasters when it was purchased by R. A. Lancaster’s son, Julius.

When we take the time to look a little closer, we are often surprised by what we find. Many of our historic properties have incomplete and sometimes inaccurate histories. It’s important that we take the time to look a little closer, to learn a little more, to make the connections that tell a more complete story.

(Jessica Gorman is Executive Director of the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Webster Parish Historian, and an avid genealogist.)