Timber Ridge is historically important, not least as the birthplace of Sam Houston (of Texas Revolutionary War fame). Robert Houston acquired the land in 1742 from Benjamin Borden, the original royal patentee. Houston gave one acre for the building of a Presbyterian meetinghouse (RB40) and built his own house, where Sam was born in 1793. That log building does not survive, but tradition has it that it was located near the site of the present Horatio Thompson House (1848; Timber Ridge Road at U.S. 11). Thompson, a Presbyterian minister, built a side-hall, double-pile Greek Revival house, unusual in a country setting for they were more common in towns. The narrow, three-bay facade has giant pilasters at its corners and a finely detailed, one-story, pedimented, Greek Doric porch.
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