Andrew Jackson HOUSTON, Congress, TX (1854-1941)

HOUSTON, Andrew Jackson, (son of Samuel Houston), a Senator from Texas; born in Independence, Washington County, Tex., June 21, 1854; attended the common schools, Baylor University, Waco, Tex., Bastrop (Tex.) Military Academy, Texas Military Institute at Austin, Old Salado (Tex.) College, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.; clerk in the State school department 1873-1875 and in the General Land Office, Washington, D.C., in 1875; one of the organizers of the Travis Rifles at Austin during the reconstruction period in 1874; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1876 and practiced in Tyler, and later in Dallas and Beaumont, Tex.; clerk of the United States district court at Dallas, Tex., 1879-1889; served in the Texas National Guard 1884-1893 with the rank of colonel; during the Spanish-American War formed a troop of Cavalry for the Rough Riders of Theodore Roosevelt but was not a member; appointed United States marshal for the eastern district of Texas 1902-1910; unsuccessful Prohibition Party candidate for Governor of Texas in 1910 and 1912; retired from active business pursuits in 1918, lived near La Porte, Tex., and studied and wrote history; appointed superintendent of the State park at the San Jacinto battleground 1924-1941; appointed on April 21, 1941, as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy in the term ending January 3, 1943, caused by the death of Morris Sheppard and served from April 21, 1941, until his death; at the time of his swearing in, was the oldest man, at eighty-seven, ever to enter the Senate; died in a hospital in Baltimore, Md., June 26, 1941; interment in the State Cemetery, Austin, Tex.

Bibliography

Houston, Andrew Jackson. Texas Independence. Houston: Anson Jones Press, 1938; U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses. 77th Cong., 2nd sess., 1942. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1944.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present