584 South Front St. Memphis, TN
Circa 1840. 1-story Greek Revival style
Home of Virginia Frazer Boyle: "Poet Laureate of the Confederacy" and patriotic poems for World War I
Hugh Rice Austin (1810-1870) and Elizabeth Ann Ragan Austin (1819-1857) were the first owners and lived south of the established downtown Memphis. He came from Virginia, and she was a Vicksburg gal. He was a cotton planter with a Mississippi plantation and constructed his winter home with a very high ceiling as well as with masonry and stucco style. He was editor of "The American Union;" "The Republican Review"; "Old Line Whig" among others.
Their daughter Letitia S. Austin Frazer (1837-1923) and Charles Wesley Frazer (1834-1897) owned the home next about 1864. Frazer was a Fayette Co. native and became a Memphis lawyer. The family moved from Chattanooga to Memphis after the Civil War. A daughter Virginia Frazer Boyle (1863-1938) was an accomplished writer. On a trip to the Gulf Coast in 1873, Virginia read a poem to Jefferson Davis, and he was so taken that he said she was the "poet laureate of the Confederacy." She read law with her father and passed collegiate examinations. She wed Thomas Raymond Boyle, an attorney, in 1884. When her father Charles died, she petitioned her husband and assumed responsibility for her father's estate. She wrote and published various pieces, and renewed her efforts when the Great War broke out. The French government honored her services to various aid organizations including the Red Cross.
Samuel Henry (S. H.) Dunscomb (1822-1898) and Marietta C. “Mattie” Elder Dunscomb (1835-1918). They wed in 1854. Dunscomb was a Kentucky native. He was president of De Soto Bank and then consolidated with the National Bank of Commerce in 1880 and became president; was president of Hernando Insurance Company 1868; 1881-1884 Treasurer of the Cotton Exchange; and treasurer of Leath Orphan Asylum. It is locally known as “The little Greek House.” The home had magnolias in the front area and a rose garden in the rear.
During the Civil War, the home was badly vandalized. In the late nineteenth century, it was turned into a boarding house.
In 1933, it was still standing and voted one of six best examples of early architecture in Memphis. The area became very industrialized with rail yards, and the home site was on the southern edge of the present Memphis Farmer's Market. The mansion was demolished in 1946.
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