Margaret Lea Houston
Margaret Lea Houston was First Lady of the Republic of Texas during her husband Sam Houston's second term as President of the Republic of Texas. They met following the first of his two non-consecutive terms as the Republic's president, and married when he was a representative in the Congress of the Republic of Texas. She was his third wife, remaining with him until his death.
She came from a close-knit family in Alabama, many of whom also moved to Texas when she married the man who was an accomplished politician in both Tennessee and Texas, and who had won the Battle of San Jacinto during the Texas Revolution. The couple had eight children, and she gave birth to most of them while he was away attending to politics. Her mother Nancy Lea was a constant in their lives, helping with the children, managing the household help, and always providing either financial assistance or temporary housing. With the help of her extended family in Texas, Margaret convinced her husband to give up both alcohol and profane language. He believed his wife to be an exemplary woman of faith and, under her influence, converted to the Baptist denomination, after he had many years earlier been baptized a Catholic in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Following the Annexation of Texas to the United States, Sam Houston shuttled back and forth to Washington, D.C. as the state's U.S. senator for 13 years, while Margaret remained in Texas raising their children. When he was elected the state's governor, Margaret became First Lady of the state of Texas and was pregnant with their last child. Her brief tenure came on the cusp of the Civil War, at a time when the state was torn apart over the debate of whether or not to secede from the United States, while her husband worked in vain to defeat the Texas Ordinance of Secession. There was an attempt on his life, and angry mobs gathered in the streets near the governor's mansion. With no government protection provided, she lived in fear for her family's safety.
Her husband was removed from office by the Texas Secession Convention for refusing to swear loyalty to the Confederacy. Margaret became a wartime mother, whose eldest son joined the Confederate Army and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Shiloh. Her husband died before the end of the war. In her few remaining years, she became the keeper of the Sam Houston legacy and opened his records to a trusted biographer. When she died of yellow fever four and a half years later, Margaret could not be buried with her husband in a public cemetery in Huntsville for fear of contamination, and was instead interred next to her mother on private property.
Early life
Margaret Moffette Lea was born April 11, 1819, into a family of devout Baptists in Perry County, Alabama. Her father Temple Lea was a church deacon and the state treasurer of the Alabama Baptist Convention, and her mother Nancy Moffette Lea was the only woman delegate at the convention's formation. Margaret was the fifth of six children that included older brothers Martin, Henry Clinton and Vernal, older sister Varilla, and younger sister Antoinette. The Lea cotton plantation had been acquired with money from a Moffette family inheritance, and was operated by Nancy.When her father died in 1834, she inherited five slaves: Joshua, Eliza, her favorite, Viannah, Charlotte and Jackson. The older Lea children had married prior to Temple's death, but Vernal, Margaret and Antoinette accompanied the widowed Nancy when she moved into her son Henry's home at Marion. He was an accomplished attorney who sat on the boards of educational institutions, and would be elected to the Alabama State Senate in 1836. Margaret was enrolled at Professor McLean's School, and also attended Judson Female Institute. The latter was founded by Baptists to instruct genteel young women in what were considered acceptable goals of their time and place, "proficiency in needlework, dancing, drawing, and penmanship". Heavy emphasis was put on Baptist theology and missionary work. She wrote poetry and read romantic novels, while also becoming accomplished on guitar, harp and piano. Reverend Peter Crawford baptized her in the Siloam Baptist Church of Marion when she was 19, by which time the eligible young lady was considered "accomplished, well-connected and deeply religious".
Marriage
was an attorney by profession and politically accomplished even before he moved to Texas. In Tennessee, he had been both a member of the United States House of Representatives and governor. His military victory at the Battle of San Jacinto elevated him to hero status in Texas. After completing his first term as President of the Republic of Texas in early December 1838, he continued to practice law from his office in Liberty. He arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in the early months of 1839 as a partner of the Sabine City Company, seeking investors to develop a community that is today known as Sabine Pass. Through Martin Lea, he made the acquaintance of Antoinette's husband William Bledsoe, a wealthy businessman who in turn suggested Nancy Lea as a possible investor. Invited to a garden party at Martin's home, it was there Houston first became acquainted with Margaret. The mutual attraction was instantaneous.Nancy was favorably impressed with Houston's land sales pitch, but not so impressed with his interest in her daughter. She and others in the family were concerned about his reputation as a hard-drinking carouser with a proclivity for profanity, who was 26 years older than Margaret and twice married. Several weeks of love letters had been exchanged between Margaret and Houston by the time he proposed marriage that summer of 1839, presenting her with his image carved on a brooch. In an effort to assuage the family's opposition to the union, Houston spent several weeks in the Lea home in Alabama.
In September during his absence from Texas, his supporters in San Augustine County elected him to serve in the Republic of Texas House of Representatives. When the couple's engagement was announced in newspapers, the Leas were not the only ones who were skeptical. Acquaintances in Texas were well versed with his personal history and aware that he only recently obtained a divorce from his first wife, Eliza Allen of Gatlin, TN. The original divorce paperwork, in 1829, was lost and not filed; Houston was unaware until 1837 so he filed the paperwork immediately to finalize his divorce. He had hopes of marrying a Texas woman, Anna Raguet, as it played out she rejected him for his friend Mr. Irion. Political crony Barnard E. Bee Sr. tried to discourage him from making a third attempt at marriage, believing him to be "totally disqualified for domestic happiness".
As the day of their May 9, 1840, wedding approached, some family members still looked upon Houston with uncertainty and were determined to stop what they believed would be a disastrous union for Margaret. She would not be deterred, however, and the Reverend Peter Crawford officiated over the wedding of Margaret and the man with whom she had fallen in love. The newlyweds spent their honeymoon week at the Lafayette Hotel before sailing to Galveston, where Nancy and the Bledsoes had already established residencies. Houston retained a house he owned in the city named for him, but Margaret had no taste for the hustle and bustle and preferred the lesser-populated Galveston. She and her personal slaves, who had accompanied the newlyweds from Alabama, shared her mother's house while Houston traveled.
First Lady of the Republic
The year before he met Margaret, Houston had purchased property at Cedar Point on Galveston Bay in Chambers County, which he named Raven Moor, and planned to expand with income from his law practice. The existing two-room log dogtrot house with its detached slave quarters overlooked Galveston Bay and became the newlyweds' first home, filled with both Margaret's personal furnishings from Alabama, as well as newer pieces. She renamed it Ben Lomond as a tip of the hat to the romantic Walter Scott works she had read, and delegated management of the household to her mother Nancy.During his second term as representative from San Augustine, Houston was elected in 1841 to once again serve as the Republic's president. Margaret disliked campaign events and, giving up her privacy, so she frequently stayed home while her husband traveled about the Republic canvassing for votes. Yet, when she rose to the occasion, such as the extended post-election tour of San Augustine County and victory celebrations in Washington County and Houston City, the public adored her, and she became an impressive political asset. She rode in a local presidential parade, but stayed home rather than travel to the inauguration in Austin. When the couple appeared at several events in Nacogdoches, his old friends took notice of his total avoidance of alcohol, and he continued to assure her that he was giving it up completely. He also began to clean up his language to please his new wife, and would eventually claim to have eliminated his profanity altogether.
Approximately north of Ben Lomond, the Bledsoes operated a sugar cane plantation at Grand Cane in Liberty County. Financially supplemented by Nancy, the plantation became a family gathering place. About a year after Vernal and Mary Lea also moved there, Mary suffered a pregnancy miscarriage. Not long after that, the couple accepted trusteeship of a 7-year-old Galveston orphan named Susan Virginia Thorne, who was then placed in the care of Nancy. It was a problematic relationship from the beginning, and would grow to have legal ramifications for Margaret.
Events leading up to the 1842 Battle of Salado Creek caused Houston to believe that Mexico was planning a full-scale invasion to re-take Texas. In response, he moved the Republic's capital farther east to Washington-on-the-Brazos, and sent Margaret back to her relatives in Alabama. Upon her later return, they temporarily lived with the Lockhart family at Washington-on-the-Brazos until they were able to acquire a small home there. The couple's first child Sam Houston Jr. was born in the new house on May 25, 1843. Upon learning of her son Martin's death in a duel, Nancy moved in with the Houstons, helping Margaret with the new baby, and over Houston's objections, pitching in with some financial assistance for food and household necessities.