Houston, Samuel

Two autograph letters signed and one letter signed by Samuel Houston ("Sam Houston"), Washington, [Texas,] 2 January 1836, to Colonel J. B. Nancy at Fort Jessup, Louisiana; Washington, [Texas,] 2 January 1836, to Major Joseph Bonnell at Fort Jessup, Louisiana; and Washington, [District of Columbia,] 24 December 1857, to Mrs. Mary Allen at Kinderhook, New York, all pasted into a 19th-century ledger-scrapbook with clipped signatures, news clippings, and other ephemera and documents, the majority related to John M. Allen and Texas; many browned or glue-stained. 19th-century half calf; broken and partially disbound.

The present scrapbook seems to have been begun by one W. L. Rodman in 1872. The book includes a few clipped signatures of then-notable figures (including Henry W. Longfellow, August Belmont, Robert Stockton, and Charles P. Daly), but its principal interest is in the 3 Sam Houston letters it contains.

The two autograph letters of 1836 were written as a General in the Army of Texas and both are introductions for Captain  J. M. Allen. In the letter to Bonnell, Houston writes, "If my friend Capt. Allen should meet you, he will hand you this note. Treat him as a friend. I look anxiously for you at Head Quarters. ..." The letter to Nancy is somewhat more expansive: "I take pleasure in presenting to your friendly acquaintance my friend Capt. J. M. Allen of the Army of Texas. The Capt. is under orders for New Orleans, and will pass by your Post: We have much vacant land, in Texas, to settle, and you know we Mexicans prefer employing the Military, to bring Emigrants, General Filisola has a large Grant not yet settled. So the State feels an interest in having a dense settlement on the frontier."

The third letter was written as United States Senator. In it, Houston assure J. W. Allen's widow that he "will endeavor to see the Sec'y of the Navy, and prevail upon him to revoke the orders of your brother to the Coast of Africa, & order him to some Station within the U. S." Houston also pledges Mrs. Allen to assist with the sale of her land in Texas, concluding "It will always give me great pleasure to gratify or aid the widow or orphans of my my departed friend Major Allen."

John M. Allen served in the United States Navy before joining the revolutionary army of Texas. He was appointed captain of infantry, and served as acting major at the battle of San Jacinto. He was the first mayor of Galveston, an office he filled from 1839 through 1846; he died in 1847. The scrapbook also include a Galveston City broadside printed above Allen's name, on blue paper, 14 May 1839, offering Admiral Baudin the freedom of the city in reward for his actions during the siege and capture of St. John de Ulloa (Streeter, Bibliography of Texas I:315).