The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-05-22

GEN. HousroN,s CHERoKEE WIFE.
 A recent item in a contemporary con meets the present with an event of three quarters of a century ago in which mystery and romance were inti- mately blended. When, in 1929. Gen eral Sam Houston left the Tennessee wife to whom he had been married but three months, there was naturally
 much speculation and many and vari- ous were the stories told of the affair. Houston was too chivairic to give the ra., reason for the separation. if there was any hidden reason, and pore 'ne htaue himself, and even yet It is doup'- sul if the real cause is or VIII pc known.
 rtovAver that may be. Houston auit- ..a h,. home. turned his back on ms e.,,. ana his friends. and went to the cherokee Indians. who were then ID Arkansas, and with whom he was then ana had long been on terms of inti- macy and friendship. He became 10 all intents and purposes cherokee' and he made some bitter enemies py h,s ehamp,onship of the cause of his Indian friends and his denunciation or the swindies perpetrated on them py the agents of the government. It was here that he met and married the Cher- otee maiden, Tallahina Rogers, said to be the most beautiful girl in the Cher okee Nation. It is probable that they wera married after the Indian manner. hut of this we are not informed. It IS certain that he looked on her as his wife.
 ] But Sam Houston was not the man
 to remain in obscurity and inaction. visiting Texas in 1882 he was invited
 to settle there -and throw in his lot
 with the Texans who were even then
 contemplating revolution against the l Mexican government. The, invitation
 suited his restless and conductive na-
 ture and he accepted the offer His
 after life Is part of the history of the | American government and people. and has nothing to do with this article.
 The beautiful Tallahina was left be hind when Houston started to Texas and died few years later. She prob
 ably had no claim on him under the
 white mans laws, but that does not alter the. fact that she was his wife and he deserted her. His first wife ob tained divorce and he afterward' came to Alabama and married again hut all that was left for the Cherokee wife was to die. neither wife nor wid ow. as our laws regarded her.
 What brought all this up was a par : agraph in an Arkansas paper statint , that preparations have been made, ar : ter something like sixty years, to pa 1 nroper respect to the Cherokee wife D. z removing her remains from their hum
 ble resting place to the national ceme tery at. Fort Gibson. This is the para
 graph:
 The discovery of the grave of Gen
 ersi Sam Houston's Cherokee wifi
 came about by paragraph in The Mui 2 droM Register, ten years ago, WnIc
 smith an old Confederate soldier, wh !. on the retreat of General Prices arm! .. after the disastrous battle or re d Ridge, crossed the ArhanSaS EiNON Wilson's Rock, fifteen miles above Fol T smith, in 1883, where he saw the gray 3, of General Houston's Cherokee VII . Tn company with. the editor of The Fo; E by assistance of W. Wilson, an ol a settler Cherokee, who located there ., 1SS2 the grave was discovered in y dense thicket, MT, Wilson having erec 8 ed a sandstone slab at the neao an n foot. Williamson designated the gray " by it's location near red cedar tree- l. It appears that General Houston ar '- his wife lived at this Wilson's Roc n and 1t was from that place that ! IL started on his momentous trip to Tel Io as, It is quite probable that he pron " ised to return to his Cherokee wifi IL and we may do him the justice to ss that he intended doing so, but the sti 's ring events which were then takir place, and which eliminated at S'
 Jacinto in 1886, which made him Pre-
 ident of the new republic, and afte 4 wards Senator from the new State al
 Governor of it-all this plotted fro
 his mind the woman who had giv'
 herself to him and who was left to to in obscurity. Now, at least parti .o justice will be done her and her T
 mains will rest In an honored gra a+ where they will not be forgotten. re was proposed that the removal shou a be made on the s0th inst. so that t -a grave may be decorated with the oth
 graves, as this Is Decoration Day.
 Miss Rogers was relative of t present Chief Rogers of the Cherok Nation. and 1t is partly through his w fuence and assistance that the remoN a. is to be made. Thus after three-sco ca years have passed the deserted Indi
 wife's claims to recognition will be oI least tacitly acknowledged.
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