January 21, 2010

After the marriage of Sam Houston, Tennessee governor, to eighteen-year-old Eliza Allen fell apart under mysterious circumstances, he resigned his office on April 16, 1829, and shortly afterward left for “the wigwam of his adopted father, the chief of the Cherokees, in Arkansas.” Houston lived among his adopted Cherokee and called the Arkansas Territory his home from May 1829 to November 1832. After leaving Arkansas, he went on to greater fame as the president of the Republic of Texas, as well as U.S. senator, and governor of the state of Texas.