Sam Houston in Virginia ?

First Edgar Allen Poe in Virginia and now Sam Houston?  What gives?

I did find out why there's a statue of Poe in Richmond:  that was his home!  I always thought his home was in some opium den in New York City.  (So much for my English Lit class)

Sam Houston was born in Virginia.  (Shame on me, a Texan, for not knowing that.)

We are just a few miles up the road from the home of "Stonewall" Jackson.  At the visitor's center there John happened to see a blurp on the wall about Houston's birthplace.  Well, as Texans, OF COURSE we had to search this out.  If it hadn't been for lil' Miss GPS though we would never have found it.  I can't imagine why the state of Virginia hasn't had this at the top of their tourist promotion list... :-)

It's really a beautiful location and there's a really cool, very old church there - but Houston's home is long gone.  There is a huge chunk of red marble there:

 I'm not sure why it had to be fenced off... maybe to keep small children from climbing on it and falling off?

This was a really pretty monument, and we're glad we discovered it.

This plaque mentions Houston leading his forces "to victory in the battle of San Jacinto."  Interesting story about the San Jacinto battlefield.  John's grandmother was living on Galveston Island during the hurricane of 1900.  Her family evacuated, and during the night they witnessed and heard what they thought was cannon fire, rifle fire, and forms moving around as though in a battle.  When the sun came up and they surveyed their surroundings, they discovered they had ridden out the hurricane on the old San Jacinto battlefield.  To her dying day she believed that the ghosts of Houston's battle shared that stormy night with her and her family.