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Likely
in high school, or perhaps in college, everyone learns that Miles
Standish, company man and soldier in Plymouth Colony, asked John Alden
to present his suit for the favor of the fair Pricilla, who ended
up with Alden, not Standish. Well, Texas had just such a case. Here
is what happened:
Sam Houston was
a man of many loves. First there was a Tennessee wife, who left Houston
and returned to her father (and younger boyfriend) after a few months
of marriage. That sent a drunken Houston to western Arkansas, really
Oklahoma, and an Indian wife. Later in life he married Margaret Lea
of Alabama, but in between, there was Anna Raguet of Nacogdoches.
Anna Raguet was half Houston's age when he courted her in the 1830s,
including the months he was away leading the Texas Revolutionary army
and serving as president of the Republic. Houston often sent love
letters to Anna via another resident of Nacogdoches,
Dr. Robert Anderson Irion, his secretary of state. And you guessed
it: Anna eventually married Irion, and not Houston, in 1840.
Irion
was born in Paris, Tennessee, in 1804, and educated at Transylvania
University in Lexington, Kentucky. He began a medical practice in
Vicksburg in 1826, but moved west in 1832 when his first wife, Ann
A. Vick, passed away.
Like many another "Gone To Texas" immigrant wanting to start life
anew, Irion lived first in San
Augustine, then transferred to Nacogdoches.
He practiced medicine again, but like nearly everyone else in Texas
then, Irion received several land grants from the Mexican government
and also worked as a land surveyor.
When the Texas Revolution began, Irion became a member of the Committee
of Safety and Vigilance Committee in Nacogdoches and later served
as commander of forces there. Irion was elected to the first Texas
congress, and his friend and president of the Republic, Houston, appointed
him secretary of state for the Republic of Texas. When Mirabeau B.
Lamar succeeded Houston as president of the Republic, Irion returned
to Nacogdoches and the practice of law. He died on March 2, 1861,
and was interred in Oak Grove Cemetery in Nacogdoches.
Houston moved on to other loves, but Irion stayed married to Anna.
Their union produced five children, and Texas' own version of the
Familiar Triangle. |
© Archie
P. McDonald
All
Things Historical
April 23, 2007 column
A syndicated column in over 70 East Texas newspapers
(Distributed by the East Texas Historical Association. Archie P. McDonald
is director of the Association and author of more than 20 books on
Texas) |
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