Father: Major Samuel Houston, soldier of the Revolution and Assistant Inspector-General of the frontier troops.
Mother: Elizabeth Paxton Houston, a large woman of fine physique and strong character.
At eight years of age young Sam attends country school in the “Field School,” which occupied the old building out of which Washington University had removed to Lexington.
In 1807 his father dies, and his brave-spirited mother, now left with six sons and three daughters, crosses the Allegheny Mountains and resettles eight miles east of the Tennessee River in Blount County, Tennessee, here to build a cabin and clear the land.
Sam hunts, traps, works on the farm, is fascinated by the battles and adventures in the Iliad as translated by Alexander Pope, and intermittently attends the Maryville Academy, where his especial pleasure is to drill his mates in military tactics.
Apprenticed to a blacksmith, and later hired out as a clerk in a general store, he runs away and joins the Cherokee Indians, across the Tennessee River.
Is adopted by the sub-chief Oolootekah or John Jolly. Refuses to return when found by his brothers, and spends his time living as an Indian. Is now almost six feet tall, and of large frame.
In 1811, when aged eighteen, returns to white civilization. Wearing a calico hunting-shirt, and his hair in a pigtail, he teaches country school, in Eastern Tennessee, to pay off debts contracted while he played Indian.
In 1813 enlists at Maryville, with the approval of his mother, as a private soldier in the war against Great Britain. He is promoted to sergeant, in the 39th Regiment, Tennessee Volunteers, serves as drill-master in Tennessee and Alabama, and soon is appointed to ensign, by President Madison.