Samuel Houston was a teacher, a military man, a frontiersman, a lawyer, and a politician. The fourth-largest city in the United States, Houston, Texas, is named in his honor.
The son of Major Samuel Houston and Elizabeth Houston, he was born on March 2, 1793, in a log cabin on his family’s plantation in Timber Ridge, Virginia. He was the fifth of nine children.
After his father’s death, the Houston family moved to Maryville, Tennessee, near the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. There, they farmed 419 acres and opened a store. Houston disliked school, farming, and store work, so he ran away and lived with the Cherokee. An avid reader, he returned to Maryville at age 18 and opened a one-room schoolhouse, which became very successful.
Houston later joined the U.S. Army as a private during the War of 1812. By the end of the war, he had risen to the rank of officer and came to the attention of General Andrew Jackson, who became his mentor.
In 1818, Houston moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to study law under Judge James Trimble. After passing the bar, he opened a legal practice in Lebanon, Tennessee. He was also appointed local prosecutor and given command in the state militia.
With Andrew Jackson’s support, Houston was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving Tennessee from 1823 to 1827. He was then elected governor of Tennessee in 1827. However, after his marriage failed in 1829, he resigned from office and moved to the Arkansas Territory (present-day Oklahoma), where he lived among the Cherokee, whom he had helped relocate.
In 1833, Houston traveled to Texas, where he was elected to represent Nacogdoches at the Convention of 1833, which petitioned Mexico for statehood. In 1836, he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and was named commander of the Texan army.
After Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna’s forces defeated the Texan defenders at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, Santa Anna pursued Houston’s army. On April 21, 1836, at the Battle of San Jacinto, Houston launched a surprise attack and defeated the larger Mexican force. Santa Anna was captured and compelled to sign a treaty granting Texas its independence.
Houston became a hero of Texas and was elected president of the Republic of Texas on September 5, 1836. After Texas was annexed by the United States, he served as a U.S. senator, becoming the only American to hold that position after serving as the head of state of a foreign country. He later became governor of Texas in 1859, making him the only person to serve as governor of two different states. However, he did not complete that term.
As fate would have it, Sam Houston would not finish that term as govenor either.
To claim and log this Virtual Cache please email or message me the answers to the following 5 questions and posting a picture of yourself or personal item with Samuel Houston:
1. Where(area) did Sam Houston live with the Cherokee?
2. What was Sam Houston's rank at the end of the War of 1812?
3, What was the source of Sam Houston's Greatest pride?
4. Why was Sam Houston removed as Govenor of Texas?
5. What did Sam Houston's Cherokee name transulate to in English?
6. Post a picture of yourself or personal item with the statue of Samuel Houston in the background.
Virtual Rewards 5.0 - 2026-2027
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between February 3, 2026 and February 3, 2027. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 5.0 on the Geocaching Blog.