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Post by timniesen on Apr 15, 2014 18:20:54 GMT -5
Lancaster (Weekly) Intelligencer, June 30, 1886. Written by Alfred Sanderson.
General Sam Houston.
Some time since my friend, Capt. George G. Boyer, of this city, was rummaging through through some old papers belonging to his father, the late Jerome K. Boyer, and came across the letter, a notice of which will close this communication. It was written at Washington city, July 1,1846, and was addressed to my father, then a resident of Carlisle. It was from the pen of General Sam Houston, then one of the United States senators from Texas, and the first president of the lone star republic, and was in reply to an invitation to attend a Democratic celebration at Carlisle on the 4th of July of that year. It was published by Mr. Boyer in the Carlisle Democrat, of which he was the founder and editor, and fortunately was preserved by him. It has been presented to me , and I assure you will be well taken care of and treasured as a souvenir of the past. The writing is as plain as print and the signature bold and dashing, characteristic, indeed, of the great soldier and statesman. On account of prior engagements he was unable to attend, but adds: "I hope, however, that some future opportunity will enable me to do so; as nothing will afford me more satisfaction than a visit to that portion of Pennsylvania which was the home of my ancestors, and in which, no doubt, many of my kindred at present reside. "Do me the favor to tender to those whom you represent the deep sense of my appreciation for this mark of my regard, and accept for yourself my thanks for the flattering terms of your communication." Note that I have also found an obituary of his closest cousin (his paternal uncle's son) stating that he was born in Lancaster County, PA in the early 1790s! Shortly before his death, Thomas Ricks Lindley told me that far more than the Crockett death issue's resolution, he hoped that I could prove that San Houston was a Yankee!
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Post by sloanrodgers on Jan 19, 2015 21:07:01 GMT -5
I don't visit much on here anymore. I mostly hang out on Facebook. I see no resolution on either old Crockett/ Houston issue in the near future. Contemporary evidence is so hard to come by at this late date.
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Post by timniesen on Jan 20, 2015 16:33:54 GMT -5
Thanks skr for responding. No one else seems interested. The letters from Houston's first cousin are in the Collected Letters of Sam Houston. How does one explain that the father of Sam Houston's brother was having children in Lancaster County the year before Sam Houston' birth? Their Houston relative named Mifflin was the Governor of Pennsylvania, and he was certainly able to provide employment for the Houston brothers. According to Thomas Ricks Lindley, the only thing that is known about Sam Houston's father was that he was a "failed planter" in what is now in West Virginia. Where would such a failure of a man go for employment? Remember, at this time, Wrightsville, near Columbia, PA was being considered to be the future Washington, DC. Columbia was the main town on what was called the "Old King's Highway," and the state of Pennsylvania was building a paved road from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. Southern interest opposed this location, however. Tim Niesen
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Post by timniesen on Jan 20, 2015 16:34:24 GMT -5
Thanks skr for responding. No one else seems interested. The letters from Houston's first cousin are in the Collected Letters of Sam Houston. How does one explain that the father of Sam Houston's brother was having children in Lancaster County the year before Sam Houston' birth? Their Houston relative named Mifflin was the Governor of Pennsylvania, and he was certainly able to provide employment for the Houston brothers. According to Thomas Ricks Lindley, the only thing that is known about Sam Houston's father was that he was a "failed planter" in what is now in West Virginia. Where would such a failure of a man go for employment? Remember, at this time, Wrightsville, near Columbia, PA was being considered to be the future Washington, DC. Columbia was the main town on what was called the "Old King's Highway," and the state of Pennsylvania was building a paved road from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. Southern interest opposed this location, however. Tim Niesen
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jan 20, 2015 20:36:24 GMT -5
What motivation would Sam Houston have for saying that he was born near Natural Bridge, Virginia? Of what importance would it have been to disclaim Pennsylvania (my home state -- I'm a Yankee).
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Post by timniesen on Jan 22, 2015 17:08:49 GMT -5
Rich, The book by Samuel Evans does not state that Sam Houston was born in Lancaster County, but rather that he was there as a child. Sam Houston's first and closest cousin was born the year before his birth in Lancaster County. This Scot-Irish scholar from Columbia was a member of the West Virginia Historical Society. Evans wrote a manuscript on the history of the Houston family, which is now missing, having been donated to the Lancaster County Historical Society. A man named Dr. John H. Houston (his interesting family emigrated from Scotland to eastern Lancaster in the early 1830s) was the librarian of this society in the period after its donation, and the manuscript was almost certainly missing by the time a prominent member of that society wrote a brief account (1922) of Sam Houston's visit to Lancaster County in 1848. I remember from years ago when you stated there had been a marker near your childhood home near Mifflintown about Sam Houston. If Sam Houston was born in Pennsylvania, he is far more likely to have been born there rather than in Lancaster County. Note also that Mifflintown was the end of the line for an proposed offshoot of the public highway to Pittsburg. On top of that, Mifflintown had at least some links with the Governor Mifflin. Sam Houston's father and brother were certainly educated enough to have been useful on these public road projects. Tim
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jan 22, 2015 17:53:52 GMT -5
You are correct. What I remember, and I don't know from where, is that I saw an early 20th. century map of central PA with a marker on it (not a historical marker anywhere that I have ever seen) labeling it as "Sam Houston's Birthplace." I wondered then why and how -- and did they mean THE Sam Houston or A Sam Houston. I have never seen any other evidence of it. As I remember, it was somewhere just east of Lewistown, PA, in Mifflin County.
While not directly related, John Purdy Reynolds, William McDowell and David Porter Cummings, all of whom died in the Alamo, were also from Mifflin County. Cummings' father was an official or an engineer on the Pennsylvania Canal, and Reynolds' father was county associate judge. (All well described in REMEMBER THE ALAMO HEROES, Albert Curtis' chock-full-of-historical details but alas unfootnoted 1960 book published by The Clegg Company of San Antonio). A ten-foot cenotaph commemorating Reynolds stands in a Lewistown, PA, cemetery. Our home is in State College, PA, about 35 miles west of Lewistown.
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Post by timniesen on Jan 23, 2015 12:05:19 GMT -5
Rich, You asked a good question: why would Sam Houston lie about his Yankee early life and origins. Was there discrimination against Yankee immigrants into Texas? Certainly some of Houston's opponents in Texas were from the North. Tim
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jan 23, 2015 14:50:26 GMT -5
That sort of flies in the face of his later staunch stance on Texas' not seceding from the Union. I don't think his personality would allow him to surrender to discrimination, if there was any.
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Post by timniesen on Jan 25, 2015 18:44:38 GMT -5
Rich, I am not sure of this issue. It is likely that Sam Houston was not born in PA, but rather is the son of a Southern carpet-bagger in Pennslyvania. Only the re-discovery of the Evans manuscript would solve the issue, and this is very unlikely. I am still hunting but lack confidence of finding any conclusive evidence. Tim
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jan 25, 2015 20:35:24 GMT -5
Nevertheless, the possibility is fascinating in addition to confusing. Keep digging.
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Post by timniesen on Feb 3, 2015 13:42:04 GMT -5
Rich, An internet search of "Sam Houston and Mifflintown" reveals that in 1886, the same year as the letter was written by the Lancaster journalist Alfred Sanderson, there was a book written about the Juniata Valley, claiming that there are at least five cabins in that area, the owners of which assert that they were the birthplace of Sam Houston of Texas. The co-author of the book is Franklin Ellis, the co-author with Samuel Evans of the standard History of Lancaster County published three years earlier. Indeed, the map of your youth referred to the Sam Houston of Texas. The page of the book is 761. The book is titled History of that Portion of the Juniata valley... Vol. 1, page 761. Other genealogical resources claim that President James Buchanan and Sam Houston were related from this same connection. My assumption is that the grandfather of Sam Houston first arrived in Central Pennsylvania in the 1750s before moving to Virginia. Of course, Sam Houston's father may have been a Yankee and carpetbagger too. That should make TRL laugh! Tim
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Post by timniesen on Feb 3, 2015 15:07:09 GMT -5
When I have more minutes I will copy the short passage in this book of 1886. Its PDF format does not allow me to cut and paste. Tim
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 3, 2015 23:46:40 GMT -5
Kinda what I expected. I have no reason to doubt that an ancestor of Gen. Sam was born in Juniata or Mifflin County, and this could have easily been corrupted by old-timers into "Sam Houston of Texas." But FIVE!!! lol. It has always been fun for me to know that three of the Alamo defenders were from there. There was also a whole group of "young men" from a town on the Susquehanna River just north of Lewisburg (can't remember the name) ready to go to Texas to join Houston if only the nonexistent Texas government would send them the nonexistent money for the equipment and journey.
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Post by timniesen on Feb 4, 2015 14:33:04 GMT -5
Here is the extract of page 761: "There is a common opinion among the people that the celebrated Sam Houston, of Texas, was a descendent of Robert Houston (Huston or Hustion) who lived at the Jenkins Place, a mile east of the Walnut Post Office, from 1763 to 1783, by the tax lists. There were also two or three of the same name, probably Robert's brothers, living about the same time McCveystown. But there is nothing to prove that these settlers were the ancestors of Samuel Houston. There are five cabins in five counties in this State where it is firmly believed that General Houston was born." Certainly nothing conclusive, but interesting when one finds that the brother of the father of Samuel Houston was siring children in 1791 in Lancaster County. And that this first cousin was the closest relative that Houston had, proven by letters published in the ten volume set of Houston's Letters. There is a magazine article from the 1930s in a popular Texas Monthly detailing the large collection of letters owned by a Washington woman descended from his cousin. Note also from the newspaper article reprinted from the Carlisle Democrat in 1886 that Houston himself stated that he had kin there. Tim
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