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Senate Years of Service: 1846-1855; 1855-1859 Party: Democrat; American (Know-Nothing)
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HOUSTON, Samuel, (father of Andrew Jackson Houston and cousin of David Hubbard),
a Representative from Tennessee and a Senator from Texas; born at
Timber Ridge Church, near Lexington, Va., March 2, 1793; moved about 1808 with
his widowed mother to Blount County, Tenn.; attended Maryville Academy (now
Maryville College), Maryville, Tenn.; employed as a clerk in a store in
Kingston, Tenn.; enlisted as a private in the United States Infantry 1813;
served under General Andrew Jackson in the Creek War, rose to lieutenant, and
resigned from the Army in 1818; studied law, admitted to the bar in 1818, and
commenced practice in Lebanon, Tenn.; district attorney in 1819; adjutant
general of the State 1820; major general 1821; elected to the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Congresses (March 4, 1823-March 3, 1827); Governor of Tennessee
1827-1829, when he resigned; moved to the territory of the Cherokee Nation, now
a part of Oklahoma, was a trader, and was made a member of the Cherokee Nation
by action of the National Council; moved to Texas around 1835 and was a member
of the convention at San Felipe de Austin, the purpose of which was to
establish separate statehood for Texas; member of the constitutional convention
in 1835; commander in chief of the Texas Army; successfully led the Texans
against the Mexicans in the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836; first
President of the Republic of Texas 1836-1838; member, Texas Congress 1838-1840;
again President of the Republic 1841-1844; upon the admission of Texas as a
State into the Union was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate;
reelected in 1847 and 1853 and served from February 21, 1846, to March 3, 1859;
chairman, Committee on Militia (Thirty-first through Thirty-fourth Congresses);
Governor of Texas 1859-1861; deposed March 18, 1861, because he refused to take
the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States; died in Huntsville, Tex.,
July 26, 1863; interment in Oakwood Cemetery.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography;
Dictionary of American Biography; Campbell, Randolph B.
Sam Houston and the American Southwest. New York:
HarperCollins Publishers, 1993; Houston, Samuel.
The Autobiography of Sam Houston. Edited by Donald Day and
Harry Herbert Ullom. 1954. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980.
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