The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991 Page: 5
692 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Sam Houston and Eliza Allen
Whatever their hidden motives, Houston and Eliza were married at
Allendale on January 22, 1829. She was nineteen years of age, Sam
thirty-five, one year younger than Eliza's mother. Houston, known to
his Cherokee friends as "The Raven," later recalled that as he ap-
proached the Allen home on the day of the wedding a raven fluttered in
the road before him. He interpreted its distressed cry as a forboding.'
It is not known if the marriage was consummated, but evidence indi-
cates that, if it was, the event was not a happy one. Descendants of the
Allen family and the Douglass family, into which Eliza married after
her divorce from Houston, testified that Eliza was offended by an ar-
row wound in Houston's thigh or groin, inflicted when he fought with
Andrew Jackson at the battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Though a
running sore could inhibit marital bliss, surely it was not the sole ruin
of a healthy union. There were graver problems. Another of Eliza's dis-
tant relatives, Opie Read, claimed much later that Eliza "never loved
him [Sam] and never could and had married him to please her father,"
and that she was in love with someone else."'
Although Read's tale is fractured with inaccuracies, there are other
reports that lend credibility to the theory. Houston reportedly told the
Reverend Dr. George W. Samson, his pastor while he was serving in the
U.S. Senate, that on the wedding night he had elicited a confession
from Eliza that "her affections had been given and pledged to another
before their meeting," and that she had married Houston because of
"filial duty." Houston then "retired to his own cot...." Another state-
ment, written over the signature "M. B. H." by a woman who claimed to
be Eliza's intimate friend and relative, states that "General Houston ...
(7th-9th quotations) In 1829 Wise was practicing law in Nashville in partnership with Bahe
Pceyton (see W. W Clayton, History of Davidson County Tennessee [Nashville, 'Tenn : Charles
Elder-Bookseller, g97i], 19), whom Ehza reportedly told about her maria age Wise later
served im Congress and as mister to Brazil and governor of Vii gima. Of particular interest to
this article is his marriage to Ann ElizaJennmngs (see Dumas Malone [ed.], Du.tonary of American
Bzograplhy [New York: Charles Scribncr's Sons, 1936], XX, 423), the daughter of one of two
Presbyterian ministers who denied I ouston's request, shortly aftel his separation from Eliza,
for baptism. Wise's excessive pronouncements on Sam Houston seem to be written more from
a personal than historical view.
'1A. W. Terrell, "Recollections of General Sam Houston," Southwestern HIItorical Quarterly,
XVI (O(t., 1912), 132-133
"'John Haggard of Nashville, whose grandfather was Eliza's son-in-law and also at one time
(claims John Haggard) Houston's physician, says the opening of the wound was into the intes-
trne, and "the intestinal discharge, through the wall of the abdomen," was "revolting" to Eliza
(Louise Davis, "New Light on the Mystery of Sam Houston," Nashville Tenmnssean, Aug. 19,
1962). Eleanor Allen Sullivan, Eliza's great-nimee, made a similar statement, claiming the arrow
"left a festering wound which never healed" and that Houston's "uncouthness, plus the run-
ning wound, was too much for the girl . ." (M K Wisehart, Sam Houston American Giant,
[Washington: Robert B Luce, Inc., 1962], 653). Possibly the wound healed later in Houston's
life, but one of his letters suggests it continued to trouble him long after his Tennessee days
(Houston to Lewis Cass, July 30, 1833, Wrtzings, II, 17) Houston Daily Post, Sept. 11, 1900oo
(quotation)
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991, periodical, 1991; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101214/m1/29/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.