CAPT. WRATHER’S ‘SHELLCRETE’ HOME
STILL SOLID AS THE DAY IT WAS BUILT
By Mrs. Howell Ward
While the City of Corpus Christi teems with restless movement, there is still left one spot in the backwash of time that is almost unchanged. This is the home of Mr. and Mrs. W.J. Biggio, 912 1/2 North Chaparral Street.
This quaint two-story ‘shellcrete’ building is one of but three such remaining structures in the city which once boasted many of these houses. It was built in the late ‘60’s or early ‘70’s, according to Mrs. Biggio, by her grandfather, Capt. William Baker Wrather. The other ‘shellcrete’ houses are the Meuly home at 210 North Chaparral, and a small cottage opposite the Courthouse on Mesquite Street.
Mrs. Biggio can look back over almost a hundred years of Corpus Christi pioneer family life. Through her grandmother, Mary Woesner, she can see Corpus Christi of that day. She hears again the splash of an anchor thrown overboard from a small sailboat. She sees a tall brush covered bluff with a few houses nestling at its foot. There is a small 5-year old girl who looks toward the shore from which a man is wading out to the boat. Although it is a long distance to the narrow beach, the water is not deep at all.
Finally the man reaches the boat, lifts the little girl in his strong arms, and wades back to land. It is the child’s first sight of the little village of Corpus Christi in the year 1847.
For only her 5 years, Mary Woesner had come a long journey to her new home. She had left Germany with her parents at the age of 3. After two years in Galveston, she had come westward to Corpus Christi. Her family was the ninth white family to settle in the village. The original homestead was on the lot just north of the old Tribble corner at Mesquite and Williams Streets.
Indians were still plentiful, and the family lived in constant fear of raids. Such a disturbance actually did occur during the girlhood of Mary Woesner. At the approach of hostile savages, the family fled to the brush to remain in hiding until danger had passed. Returning home at last, they found the house topsy-turvy, and a portfolio, treasured for its remembrances, completely destroyed.
Again in 1875, Mary Woesner, now a young married woman with children of her own, heard the cry of raiders. This time it was a band of outlaw Mexicans who rode on to perpetrate the tragedy at Noake’s store at Nuecestown. At the time, two little girls, playmates of her own children, were in the house. They scurried in fright under the big red bed where they remained until word came that the marauders had gone. These two little girls later became Mrs. Sam Rankin and Mrs. William Sheely.
There is a pretty incident of which Mrs. Biggio tells. It also is of her grandmother. When the Civil War spread disaster over the land, there arose a young patriot to the Southern cause. This was William Baker Wrather. He had been born in Virginia and later removed to Kentucky. Still later, he came to Corpus Christi where he engaged in ranching activities.
Being a Southerner through and through, he at once sold his large herd of horses in order to outfit the first company of soldiers to leave this city for the war. But his going was not unnoticed.
The ladies of Corpus Christi had gathered at the home of Mrs. “Dr.†Robinson, which stood at the corner of Chaparral and Schatzel Streets. Here they had stitched their high hopes and faith in their departing men into a Confederate flag.
Presentation of the flag was made on the Courthouse steps. Mary Woesner, acting as spokesman for the group of white clad young girls who stood about her, handed the flag to the dashing young Captain Wrather. Not only did she hand the precious flag of the Confederacy to this young officer, but her heart went along with it, for it was only shortly afterwards in 1861 that the two were married.
After the war, Captain Wrather built the substantial shellcrete house that still stands at 912 1/2 North Chaparral. While the family used the upper floor of the building as a home, the Captain opened a general merchandise store on the lower floor. Just south of the building on the present vacant lot, stood another one-story shellcrete house which was destroyed in the 1919 storm.
Six children were born to William Baker and Mary Woesner Wrather. They were: George, called Dick; Mary, called Molly; Annie, Hettie, Willie and Frank. All are now dead. Mrs. Biggio is the daughter of Mary.
Mrs. Biggio shows a bit of yellowed paper. It is a receipt for the first dog license issued in the City of Corpus Christi. With the cry of “Rabies!†now ringing through the streets, the recent announcement of war on stray dogs by the police department is but a duplication of activities of an earlier day.
In 1852 the City Council passed an ordinance “that no dog be permitted to go at large in the limits of the City of Corpus Christi (except) it shall have around its neck a collar on which shall be inscribed the name of the owner and the work licensed, and that each and every person keeping dogs ..... shall pay the sum of fifty cents a head ... and all dogs found running at large and not licensed ... to be taken up, killed and buried. For services of killing an burying each dog, the marshal shall receive $1 to be paid by the owner of the dog.†“This receipt is for $1.50,†said Mrs. Biggio, “and included the cost of a collar.â€
True to pioneer tradition, Mrs. Biggio herself married into another pioneer family. Her husband is W.J. Biggio, the son of William and Rebecca Ann Manahan Biggio of Rockport.
The old Wrather house has long withstood the lashings of time and tide. Its walls are a foot thick, and as solid as the day they were built. Only weather and age have etched the exterior of the building, giving the authentic touch to the survivor of a period now long past.
Source: Corpus Christi Caller, March, 1845. Taken from the scrapbook of Mrs. Hettie Anderson Biggio.
Transcribed by: Rebecca Lee Jones, granddaughter