Washerwomen Community
305 Red River, today the Sunday House was the home of the Smith family for at least 10 years before 1900 and more than 10-years after. According to the federal census of 1900 Bettie was an African American woman born into slavery in Missouri who lived in Austin Texas and was a leader in this communal wash station. She was a married and lived with her two daughters Marie and Anni and Anni’s 7 year old son Clarence. Also, her brother Don and 90 year old family friend David Eliot. Bettie and Anni were washerwomen.
Just behind the Sunday House the Mason family lived at 305 ½ Red River Street today known as the Carriage House and part of the Moonshine Grill compound. According to the federal census the household included Godfrey, a preacher, his wife Mary, a washerwoman, and teenage son and daughter Alex and Ruth. Also, on and off through the years Frank and Bettie Swisher lived at this location. Both were former enslaved people. Frank was the son of George Swisher the enslaved person of Jame G. Swisher. Both were Austin’s first residents. Frank Swisher died here in November of 1923.
The Swisher Memoirs
by John Milton Swisher
Introduction by Annie Lane Blocker (niece)
pg 4 refereing to her grandmother Elizabeth Boyd Swisher wife of James Gibson Swisher signer of Texas Independence.
“One family of her former slaves lived with her until her death in 1875. The man of this family, a tall, very black fellow called Uncle George, attended to the farm, and all during the Civil War he drove ox-wagons to Mexico with her cotton, where he sold it and brought the money back to her, –never giving a thought to the fact that when he was in Mexico he was free.”
The Sunday House today.
Visible behind Moonshine proper is another little house, the entrance used to face the alley and for years was the home of two women Nona a 70-year-old widow and washer woman and 35 year old Josie an ironer, a person who ironed clothing using a flatiron, both African American. On 3rd Street around the corner, lived Henry and Hattie Robinson and their 3 children and Henry’s widowed mother, both mother and wife were washerwomen. Just up the block also on 3rd Street their kinfolk resided – 46 year old Ann and husband John Robinson, She too was a washerwoman. One block north of the compound lived Marcia 44 and Annie 21 both washerwomen.
Making Lye Soap
Bettie and Frank Swisher donated their land for what is today called the Jackson Family Cemetery in West Lake Hills, Travis County Texas.
On December 3, 1870 Alexander Eanes sold Frank Swisher, a black man who lived in Austin, 56 acres of his land. Swisher later sold 15.5 acres to the Jackson’s, descendants of Nathan Wood, who had been living on the land for over 30 years. The deed read “ less about one half acre existing at the North end of the tract which is hereby reserved for a graveyard for the use of the neighborhood.” On the same day an additional adjacent 10.5 acres was sold to other members of the Jackson family, and a similar clause was included in the deed, it read “ less about one half of said land set apart for a burying ground for the neighborhood and which lies along the northeast line of the same.”
This was documented by Espey-Huston during the excavation prior to building the Los Lomas subdivision.
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