On Feb. 4, 1896, three days after her drunk of a husband threatened her with a butcher knife, Matilda Brown Sweeney moved back home to Ashton Villa where she spent the rest of her life.
The story of Texas’ famous first mansion begins with a New York runaway named James Moreau Brown. On his third or fourth escape attempt in the late 1830’s, the adventuresome adolescent kept going, working his way ac…
