Father Figures and Founding Fathers: The Mentors Who Shaped Sam Houston

One high-light of Houston’s two terms in Congress was the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette.

Fifty years after the American Revolution, the nobleman returned to accept the thanks of the United States. He became a friend to Sam Houston and told Sam: “No matter how bad it gets, you mustn’t let anything happen to wreck the Union of the United States. In Europe thekings and tyrants can’t wait for this experiment in democracy to fail. If the United States fails, they will feel they have got the high ground again. You’ve got to keep the United States together.”

Andrew Jackson made a toast in 1830 at a government dinner in response to the idea of nullification and cessation: “Our federal union, it must be preserved!”

Andrew and Rachel Donelson Jackson never had children of their own. Andrew adopted and/or mentored many young men, which seemed to fill a void in his life. He saw much of himself in young Sam Houston and bore his fits, rashness, and false starts, like a patient father.

Samuel Houston and Andrew Jackson were good friends.

Sam not only truly enjoyed reading and learning, he also desired to seek those whom he admired and talk with anyone who would listen to him. On some chance encounters, he had the opportunity to share time with some founding fathers of our country.

Part of the Houston legend is a meeting with Thomas Jefferson. It’s not known for certain that the meeting took place, but the road from Tennessee to Washington runs right by Jefferson’s primary, mountain home Monticello in the Piedmont region of Virginia. Houston had Jackson write him a letter of introduction to Jefferson, who was passing the drizzly fall of 1823 in retirement at Monticello.

If a meeting did occur, Houston would have found himself in the entrance hall of the home of the author of The Declaration of Independence, surrounded by Indian artifacts and relics from the Lewis and Clark expedition. Houston was deeply moved by anything concerning American democracy, and he would have been witness to this in Jefferson’s home.

Sam Houston met many influential men throughout his life, who made a life-long impression.

He took his mother’s advice: “Honor yourself and your country.” In doing so, Sam always fought for his country, whether it be an individual state Tennessee, the Republic of Texas which became the state of Texas, or the United States of America; he believed in “One Nation under

God.”