Ornate Document Signed by Sam Houston During His Brief Time as Governor of Tennessee

Houston is the only individual to be elected governor by popular vote of two different states

Sam Houston served under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. Afterwards, he was appointed as a sub-agent to oversee the removal of the Cherokee from Tennessee into Arkansas Territory in 1818. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee and studied law. He passed the bar and opened up a legal practice in Lebanon, Tennessee. With the support of Jackson, Houston won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1823. He strongly supported Jackson’s presidential candidacies and, in 1827, Houston was elected as the governor of Tennessee. In 1829, after divorcing his first wife, Houston resigned from office, and moved to the Arkansas Territory to live with the Cherokee. He had served as Tennessee governor for just a year and a half.

Houston settled in Texas in 1832. He helped organize Texas’s provisional government and was selected as the top-ranking official in the Texas Army. He led that army to victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle in Texas’s war for independence. After the war, Houston won the 1836 election and became president of Texas. Serving as the sixth governor of Tennessee and the seventh governor of Texas, he is the only individual to be elected governor of two different states in the United States.

Uncommon document signed as governor of Tennessee, Nashville, August 11, 1828, granting 50 acres to Zadock Motlow, for the consideration of “Twelve & a half cents per acre.” The land was “on the waters of the east fork of Mulberry Creek, a north bank of Elk River…” At the bottom of the document is an enormous signature of Houston, the largest we have ever seen. At this time, Houston had just eight months left before he resigned. Motlow had come to Tennessee from South Carolina.