Sam Houston Correspondence and Historic Documents

Collection

Identifier: THR/01/2014.s081

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

The General Sam Houston Correspondence and Historic Documents (1828-1925; 2 boxes) range from a pre-Texas letter written by Sam Houston to a friend in South Carolina in 1828, to newspaper articles describing Houston’s position on the issue of secession. There are fifty-six individual items including military orders, political appointments, authorizations of payments to individuals for service to the Republic and documents concerning payment to Indian Agents. The collection also includes official proclamations with signatures of other government officials in the service of the republic, such as Anson Jones and George W. Terrell, Indian Commissioner. Notable is a letter from James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States, to Sam Houston. Also included is “SAMUEL HOUSTON” by W. J. Edwards, an engraving derived from a daguerreotype, ca. 1848.

Dates

Creation: 1828 - 1925
Creation: Undated

Conditions Governing Use

The materials represented in this finding aid have been made available for research, teaching and private use. For these purposes, you may reproduce (print, make photocopies, or download) these items without prior permission on the condition that you provide proper attribution of the source in all copies.

Please contact the Newton Gresham Library's Special Collections and University Archives department to request permissions to reproduce materials for any other purpose, or to obtain information regarding the copyright status of a particular digital image, text, audio or video recording.

Extent

2 boxes

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Arrangement

The General Sam Houston Correspondence and Historic Documents contains correspondence, bills, broadsides, notes and newspaper clippings that chronicle General Sam Houston’s political career. The materials in this collection date from 1828-1925. All the materials are organized chronologically and are housed in one archival box and one oversized box. The collection is located on the SHSU Special Collection’s manuscript shelves. The “SHH #” is a unique code containing bracketed letters and numbers that follow the organizational pattern set during a grant funded digitization project called Texas Tides. The first letters in the brackets represent Sam Houston State University and are followed by the item’s identifying sequence, often correlating to a collection or sub-collection as delineated during the Texas Tides digitization process as well as the item number. For example, in the SHH # structure here [SHH III:3], SHH indicates Sam Houston State University, III indicates the third sub-collection and 3 indicates the item number within sub-collection III.