Behind the Greek Revival exterior is a two-room, dogrun log cabin that was erected in a house-raising ceremony for Clarksville carpenter Isaac Smathers in 1833. It is the oldest structure in Red River County, dating to the town laid out by James Clark. Smathers occupied the cabin until 1842, when it was given to itinerant lawyer Charles DeMorse as an incentive to establish a newspaper office in Clarksville. DeMorse renovated Smathers’s log cabin in Greek Revival, doubling its size, enclosing the dogrun as a central hall, and adding hipped-roofed porticos with boxed columns at the north and south entrances. This house is an exceptional example of the transformation of a pioneer log cabin into a Greek Revival cottage, a phenomenon that occurred throughout east Texas during the antebellum period.