WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1838
247
In 1820 he obtained his medical license, then spent a year at Bainbridge studying his profession. Next, he went into the drug business, but soon failed; when times seemed hardest for him, he got a position to teach school in Philadelphia. From 1824 to 1826 he was in Venezuela in the armies of the revolutionists; but in the late months of 1826, he returned to Philadelphia and spent an entire term at Jefferson Medical College, receiving his M.D. degree in March, 1827. In 1832 he moved to . New Orleans and opened an office on Canal Street; but he was not satisfied, and in October, 1833, he set out for Texas. Landing at Velasco, he found him- self bankrupt except for about fifty dollars worth of drugs. He decided to settle at Brazoria. There he began his practice, and in 1834, his sister Mary arrived to keep house for him and to keep him cheerful. On March 11, 1836, he joined the Texas army as a private in Captain Robert J. Calder's company, but was soon appointed a surgeon in General Burleson's regiment. Before the battle of San Jacinto he was one of the doctors who were left at Harrisburg with the s:ck; but after seeing that the sick were comfortable, he left them in the care of Dr. William P. Smith, while he hastened to the battle field, where he was soon called to the care of the wounded. After the battle he went with President Burnet to Gal- veston, and on May 10, 1836, was appointed assistant surgeon and medical purveyor of the Texas army. In that position he was sent to New Orleans to purchase medical supplies for the Texas Army. He was a member of the Second Texas Congress, a representative from the county of Brazoria, and served from September, 1837 to May, 1838. On June 12, 1838 (see letter above), Houston wrote Jones that he wished to appoint him a minister to the United States, and on June 25, issued a proclamation announcing that appointment (see Executi-ve Record Book, No. 98, p. 65, also Executive Reco1·d Book, No. 97, p. 68, both in Texas State Library), and wrote a letter to the President of the United States (Re.co1·d Book, No. 88, p. 67, Texas State Library) asking that Jones be favorably received and that full credence be given to whatever he might say on the part of Texas. President Van Buren received him with cordiality at the White House on October 9, 1838. While absent on this mission his friends elected him to the Senate of the Fourth Congress, in which body he served from November 11, 1839, to February 5, 1840. This service was to fill the unexpired term of William H. Wharton. Jones was reelected to the Fifth Congress and served till February 5, 1841. In May, 1840, he was marr:ed to Mrs. l\lary Smith McCrory. They made their home in Austin on Pecan Street (now Sixth Street). On September 6, 1844, he was elected President of Texas. He was inaugurated on December 9, of the same year, and served as President of the Republic until Texas became a state of the United States. He retired to his plantation home-"Barrington"-where he lived the private life of a planter and a country doctor for eleven years. In 1857 he was brought out as a candidate to succeed Thomas J. Rusk in the United States Senate, but was defeated by James Pinckney Henderson. Jones was of a sensitive, moody nature; and on January 9, 1858, he killed himself in his room at the old Capitol Hotel in Houston. Anson Jones's name is indelibly linked with that of Masonry in Texas. In December, 1835, he obtained a dispensation from t.he Grand Masonic Lodge of Louisiana to establish Holland Lodge No. 36, at Brazoria, and he became the ,vorshipful Master of that lodge ufter the charter was granted in March, 1836. When the Grand Masonic Lodge of Texas was orgunized
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