Teen bride leaves Gov. Sam Houston
It’s ‘history’s mystery’ about what really happened
Gov. Sam Houston’s resignation on April 16, 1829, was the scandal of the century in Tennessee. Houston is the only governor in Tennessee’s 224-year history to resign for personal reasons. The other three governors did so to ascend to higher political office. (Andrew Johnson is the only governor in America to resign that office twice.)
The collapse of Houston’s Tennessee political career began on April 11 when the then-35-year-old returned to the Nashville Inn, where he had been living with his bride of just 11 weeks, Mrs. Eliza Allen Houston. The 19-year-old bride had returned to her father’s home in Gallatin.
Earlier in the day Houston opened his re-election campaign for governor near Cockrell’s Spring. He and his challenger, ex-Gov. William Carroll, met there before a large crowd to give their stump speeches. Davidson County Sheriff William Willoughby, who was a childhood friend of Houston from Maryville, assured him that the crowd was with him for the upcoming August election. But all the political good news of the day turned into a nightmare when the governor came home to find the teenaged first lady had left him.
Houston sequestered himself in the Nashville Inn for 12 days with very few visitors. As the news of the split broke across the state like a thunderclap, people demanded to know what happened. If an answer was not offered, the masses would create their own. Imagination has no restraint in situations like these.
Eliza was protected by her family back in Gallatin, and Houston remained silent. He was burned in effigy at the Sumter County Courthouse. He was “posted” as a coward in Nashville. Willoughby warned Houston that the crowd was growing restless. He needed to speak or else he would “sacrifice” his friends and himself.
“I can make no explanation,
I exonerate this lady freely, and I do not justify myself,” Houston said. “I am a ruined man … . Remember that whatever may be said by the lady and her friends is no part of the conduct of a gallant or a generous man to take up arms against a woman. If my character cannot stand the shock, let me lose it.” He instructed Willoughby to take his letter of resignation to the Secretary of State.
Houston, who was a secular man and not religious, called for the Rev. Hume to come see him. This is the same minister who performed the wedding ceremony just weeks earlier. He asked Hume to administer the rite of baptism. Rev. Hume refused him on the grounds that it could offend the Allen family.
After nearly two weeks of isolation, Houston emerged with Willoughby and his personal physician, Dr. Shelby, by his side. He headed for the landing and boarded the Red Rover steamboat going west for the Cherokee Territory of Arkansas. When the boat stopped in Clarksville, Houston was met by some of the Allen family, who were heavily armed. They demanded to know the reason for the split. Houston would not reveal the reason but made a promise that
“if any wretch ever dares to utter a word against the purity of Mrs. Houston I will come back and write the libel in his heart’s blood.”
Did Eliza have her heart pledged to another? Did Houston’s wounds in his groin from the Battle at Horseshoe Bend impede their wedding night? Was Eliza forced by her father to marry the 35-year-old governor? Did Houston treat the young bride harshly?
Many have guessed at the answer for the breakup, but no one knows definitively.
It is a mystery to history. Neither Eliza nor Sam ever spoke about it or were tempted to write a “tell-all” bestseller. Houston once said of the matter, “I do not recognize the right of the public to interfere in it, and I shall treat the public just as if it had never happened.”
In 1830 Houston’s friend, Phil Sublett, prepared a pallet for the former governor to lay his head after a night of heavy drinking. He asked Houston for the reason for the split. Houston was insulted, stumbled to his feet, saddled his horse in the middle of the night and went on his way.
When he married again in 1840, the family of Margaret Lea inquired of the reason for the split on the eve of the wedding. Houston stated that he would rather “call off the fiddlers” than reveal the cause of his first marriage’s demise.
Sam Houston’s political career was ruined in Tennessee in April of 1829. But his sense of honor is something to be admired.