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Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast » Central Texas » Prairie View to San Felipe » Independence (Washington County) » Sam and Margaret Lea Houston House

Sam and Margaret Lea Houston House

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c. 1850. FM 390 between Hood Hotel and T. S. Saul rds.
  • (Photograph by Gerald Moorhead )

United States senator and past president of the Republic of Texas Sam Houston and his wife, Margaret Lea owned this two-story Greek Revival central-hall-plan house for a number of years and lived here at least twice between 1853 and 1859. When Houston was elected governor in 1859, the family rented the house and moved to Austin. Houston was removed from office in 1861 when he opposed the state's proposal to secede from the Union and the family settled in Huntsville. After Houston's death in 1863, Margaret Lea returned to Independence with seven of their eight children. She died in the house five years later from yellow fever and, out of necessity, was buried quickly in the Independence Baptist Church cemetery next to her mother rather than in Huntsville next to her husband.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Independence Baptist Church
General Jerome Bonaparte Robertson House
John Hoblett Seward Plantation

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Sam and Margaret Lea Houston House", [Brenham, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-PF15.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 81-82.

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