Sam Houston Homesite

Houston's father died in 1807, and the boy showed little interest in farming or in the family store. At sixteen he left the homesite and went to live with the Cherokee led by Chief John Jolly, called Oolooteka, on Hiwassee Island. He formed a close bond with Jolly, learned the Cherokee language, and was known as Raven, or Colonneh. In 1812 he returned to Maryville and was hired, at nineteen, to teach a one-room schoolhouse. Those years shaped his later life, including his 1830 marriage to Jolly's niece Dianna Rogers.

What the plaque says

Sam Houston Homesite In 1807, Sam Houston arrived at this 419-acre site with his widowed mother and eight brothers and sisters. The homesite was located just above the spring on the hill. Sam Houston served as general, President of Texas, Governor of Tennessee and Texas, and as U.S. Senator and Congressman. His victory at San Jacinto eventually led to the United States doubling its land area.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Loudoun State Historic Park — 9.5 mi
  A reconstructed 1756-57 British fort on the Little Tennessee River in Overhill Cherokee country, besieged in 1760 and surrendered on August 9 of that year.
• Sequoyah Birthplace Museum — 10 mi
  The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' museum on Tellico Lake, near the town where Sequoyah was born, telling how he built the Cherokee syllabary and what the Tellico Dam drowned.
• Cades Cove — 18 mi
  A Smokies valley ringed by mountains, once the Cherokee hunting ground of Tsiyahi and later a farming community of 685 people, kept by the park after its families were bought out.
• Blount Mansion — 21 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.

More markers nearby

• Montvale Springs — 8.3 mi
• William Bennett Scott, Sr. ca. 1821-1885 — 8.4 mi
• Where Houston Enlisted — 8.6 mi
• Louis Philippe's Visit — 8.7 mi