Ten piers lift the Samuel May Williams House seven feet off the ground, the second-oldest surviving residence in Galveston, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1964. Built in 1839 for Samuel May Williams, one of the founders of Galveston, this was a prefabricated house shipped from Maine and set upright here on ten piers, raised seven feet off the ground. It is a one-and-a-half-story house capped by a cupola where Williams installed a telescope so he could be among the first to learn when interesting cargo arrived by ship.
After Williams’ death in 1858 the house passed to his friend Philip C. Tucker, Jr., and became known as the Tucker House; the Tucker family retained it until 1953. Later it was purchased as the first project of the newly organized Galveston Historical Foundation, with restoration partially funded by a grant from the Moody Foundation. In 2007 the foundation’s executive director said, “I can hardly overemphasize the importance of this house.
Picture Samuel May Williams peering through his cupola telescope, eager to be first to spot new cargo arriving by ship.