Sam Houston.....A Very Big Man

Thursday morning we headed out to the Sam Houston Memorial Museum in Huntsville. We had one stop that we wanted to make before we got there. We wanted to see the huge Sam Houston statue which is alongside I-45 south of Huntsville. While you can see it from the highway, you are not allowed to stop anywhere along the roadside so.....take the exit and head to the Visitor's Center. You will find a nice little center with information on the statue. There is also a gift shop, restrooms, and a nice little parklike area behind the center. You just follow the pathway and.......

you come out right by the gigantic statue of Sam Houston.

This is looking out at the highway.

You have to back up quite a bit to get the whole statue into your camera sites....did I mention that it is big!!!

Our next stop was the Sam Houston Memorial Museum. Looks a little strange to see the printed version where the "u's" look like "v's".

Sam Houston was a very big figure in Texas history. But his life started back in Tennessee. When he was only about 10, he ran away and lived with the Indians several times. He opened a private school for a year which was successful. Then he enlisted in the military. He was badly injured in the war of 1812. Then he became an Indian agent before he decided to study law and pass the bar. He went on to become a Congressman and then Governor of Tennessee.

Houston married 18 year old Eliza Allen but she left him after a very short time. When pressed by an eager young reporter to tell what happened to the marriage, Sam asked the reporter if he could keep a secret. When the reporter said yes, Sam said "so can I" and neither he nor Eliza ever said why they parted. He resigned as Governor shortly after and headed west to live with the Indians again. He became a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and later married an Indian woman named Tiana Rogers. After a period of years, he divorced his Indian wife and left for Texas. Once there, he quickly became involved in the fight for Texas independence from Mexico. He was present for the first Texas Constitutional Convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos. He was named a Major General of the Army of the Republic of Texas and was in Gonzales on his way to San Antonio when he learned that the Alamo had fallen to Santa Ana. He began a retreat known as the "Runaway Scrape". He was strongly criticized for the zigzagging retreat but his real purpose was to train the troops. His 800 men attacked Santa Anna's 1400 men and won a great victory 20 minutes later in the Battle of San Jacinto. He became the President of the Republic of Texas. In 1840, he married Margaret Lea and was elected to a second term as president. When Texas became a state, he was one of the first senators. He eventually went on to become the Governor of Texas....the only man to have been governor of two different states. When Texas seceded from the Union during the Civil War, Houston resigned as Governor as he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. He died of pneumonia in 1863. This is a very interesting museum dedicated to a larger than life man. And then....there is also a village to explore on the grounds.

This house is known as the Steamboat House and is the house where Sam Houston died of pneumonia.

As we walked on through the grounds, we ran into some "watch geese" so we sent Vicki on ahead to see if it was safe.

She herded them off down the path and the rest of us continued on.

The last thing we saw was this interesting turtle. Check out that snout.

Our final stop of the day before heading back was at Carbonero Rotisserie Chicken, a Latin, Salvadorean, American restaurant. The food was delicious and nothing like the rotisserie chicken from the supermarket. Back to the park for more adventures.