218
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1842
in Pendleton, South Carolina. He was educated in the schools of his native stat~, and at Yale College from which institution he was graduated in 1824. He studied law under Henry St. George Tucker of Winchester, Virginia, .and was admitted to the bar of his own state in l 826. He immediately set up his law practice, and was successful in accumulating a small fortune; but in politics he and his father were at variance with all their friends and neighbors, because they did not adhere to the doctrine of nullification. After Samuel A. Maverick's father had answered John C. Calhoun in a speech on nullification, there was a good deal of intemperate talk against the Mavericks on the part of Calhoun's supporters. Young Maverick resented the statements of one of his best friends; a duel ensued in which the friend was seriously wounded. After the young man had nursed his antagonist back to health, he decided to leave South Carolina. In 1834 he moved to Alabama where he came in contact with the agents of the Texas empresarios and learned from t.hem the status of affairs in Texas. Impressed by the opportunities for investment in Texas, and of the opportunity to rise rapidly in the practice of his p1·ofession, he decided to try his fortunes in the "land of promise." He arrived in Texas in the early days of 1835, and settled .at San Antonio, at which place he was living when the Texas revolution broke out in October of that same year. When San Antonio was occupied by Cos in 1835, Maverick, John W. Smith, P. B. Cocke, and other Americans were arrested because of their resistance to the military authorities. At one time suspicion was so strong against Smith, Maverick, John W. Smith, and Cocke, that they were sentenced to be shot, and were even marched out in front of the firing squad. Their lives were saved by the intercession of Smith's young wife, Maria Delgado- Curbelo, a daughter of one of the early settlers of San Antonio. This young girl was a general favorite with the Mexicans of high authority, therefore she was able to save her husband's life. After the three young Americans had made their escape from the Mexicans, they joined the Texan army, which at the time was investing San Antonio, and Smith became the guide for Ben Milam and his soldiers as they entered the town. On December 8, 1835, Milam was killed in the yard of the Verimcndi House, he having been shot through the head. By his side stood Samuel A. Maverick, who caught him in his arms as he fell. Maverick retained his residence at San Antonio after the surrender of the place to the Texans, but he had received his discharge from the army, and was therefore not one of Neill's troops at the Alamo. In fact, he and Jose Antonio Navarro had been elected delegates from Bexar to the Con- vention which met at Washington on March 1, 1836. Maverick and his colleague left San Antonio on February 23, after Santa Anna's invading army had entered the town. He thus escaped the massacre at the Alamo on March 6, 1836. As a member of the Convention of March 1-17, 1836, he became one of the signers of the Declaration of Texan Independence, and assisted in framing the constitution for the Republic of Texas. After the battle of San Jacinto he returned to Alabama, where, on August 4, 1836, he married Mary Ann Adams, a Virginian by birth, the daughter of William Lewis and Agatha (Strother) .Adams. After a honeymoon of nearly two years, spent among relatives and friends in South Carolina and Alabama, this young couple decided to make Texas their home.
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