Eliza Allen (Tennessee)

Houston resigned and went to the home of his foster father John Jolly, a leader of the Cherokee people.

[4] The first of ten children born to the couple, she was described by a relative as "dignified, graceful, and queenly in her appearance… [with a face of] sweet, gentle, and winning expression.

[5] Houston was a frequent visitor over five years[6] and he was invited to spend the Fourth of July with the Allen family in 1828.

He wrote of a "small blow up" and that he could not understand "what the devil is the matter with the gals I cant say but there has been hell to pay and no pitch hot" in December to John Marable, a United States Congressman.

[5] Andrew Jackson and John Allen believed that the marriage would infuse Houston's political fortunes.

[4] On the day of his wedding, as Houston neared Allendale, he heard the distressed cry of a raven and saw its fluttering until it died in the dust, which he took to be a foreboding message.

[2][14][b] Allen was repulsed by the arrow wound that Houston received in 1814 at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

Located in Houston's groin, it was a festering sore involving his intestines,[9] and it gave off an offensive odor.

Observing Houston losing a snowball battle with Martin's daughters, Allen mentioned twice that she hoped that they would kill him.

[17] During the days, Houston worked at the capitol, which at the time did business in the Davidson County Courthouse.

He did not like her to speak to others and even at her aunt's house he wanted her to remain in her room during the periods when Houston was not around.

She told Balie Peyton that she left him because he "evinced no confidence in my integrity and had no respect for my intelligence, or trust in my discretion."

", Houston vacillated between expressing fondness and being an angry, jealous "maniac" who questioned that any woman was pure.

[5] On April 9, Houston wrote a letter to John Allen stating that he was confused by his wife's coldness and he questioned whether she loved him.

[5] After eleven weeks of marriage, Allen left Houston on the same day to return to her family.

[25] He "knelt before her and with tears streaming down his face implored forgiveness…and insisted with all his dramatic force that she return to Nashville with him".

Heavily armed and excited, they explained to Houston that there were a number of rumors about their separation, one of which was that he was so upset to learn of Allen's crime that he went insane.

[13] After Houston's marriage, he ceased to be the protege of Andrew Jackson, who had helped him become a congressman and the governor of Tennessee.

[13] Although he was still legally married to Allen, in the summer of 1830 Houston married Dianna Rogers (sometimes called Tiana), daughter of Chief John "Hellfire" Rogers (1740–1833), a Scots-Irish trader, and Jennie Due (1764–1806), a sister of Chief John Jolly, in a Cherokee ceremony.

Tennessee society disapproved of the marriage because under civil law, he was still legally married to Eliza Allen Houston.

[5] In 1837, after becoming President of the Republic of Texas, he was able to acquire, from a district court judge, a divorce from Eliza Allen.

[5][32] Although she did not wish to see Houston again, she was glad to hear of good news and of his successes, such as when he became the president of the Republic of Texas.

[37] Before her death, she asked that her letters and papers be burned, all images of her destroyed, and that she be buried in an unmarked grave.

There was not, nor is there now [anyone who] believed that Houston's wife was guilty of any impropriety, or ever in her intercourse, either before or after her marriage, did anything affecting her unsullied honor."