Pioneer Farms
Aynesworth-Wright House - 1853
In 1851, just six years after Texas gained statehood, Isaiah Hezekiah Aynesworth, a Tennessee preacher-farmersurveyor recently arrived in Texas, bought 246 acres of land for $500 near the current-day intersection of I-35 and Airport Boulevard and built this Early Texas House. It was in a Greek Revival style that looked like the house they left behind in Tennessee, so designed to assuage his homesick wife, Nancy. It was completed in 1853, the same year as the Governor's Mansion and the General Land Office building.
Aynesworth, a father of six, sold the property in 1855 to Dr. Joseph Wright for $5,000 and moved to Burnet County, where he continued to preach and farm until his death in 1876. Wright, a just-arrived North Carolinian who was one of the first physicians in the Austin area, set up his practice in a log cabin near the house and began dispensing medicinal powders for $1. He is also remembered as the original surveyor for the University of Texas campus.
Wright, his wife Rachel, and two children cultivated a large garden and farmed several acres, their pastures surrounded by a bois d'arc hedge the Aynesworths planted. Wright died in 1898, six days short of his 100th birthday.
Sources: Handbook of Texas, Bennie McCreary, Pioneer Farms Archives.