History of Bourbon, Scott, Harrison and Nicholas Counties, Kentucky, ed.
by William Henry Perrin,  O. L. Baskin & Co., Chicago, 1882.  p. 539.
[Bourbon County]  [North Middletown Precinct]

THE HOUSTON FAMILY--Peter and James Houston were early settlers in
Bourbon County.  Their father, Samuel Houston was Scotch-Irish, and was
born in Dublin, Ireland in 1731; he emigrated to America in 1751, and
located in Shenandoah County, Va., where her married a Miss Hamilton. In
1763 he emigrated to Iredell County, N. C., and when war was declared
against the mother country, he enlisted as a soldier and served to the end,
receiving many wounds, but was never a prisoner.  He lived to be
ninety-nine years old and died leaving four sons and three daughters, viz:
Peter, James, Robert Samuel, Prudence, Sarah and Jane.  The two last named
daughters married Clarks, and lived and died in their native State, leaving
children.  The other, Prudence, married a Brown, had two sons and died in
her native county, but her sons, Franklin and Houston Brown, emigrated to
Ohio where they still live.  Samuel married an Alexander and remained and
died at his father's homestead, aged eighty-eight years; he left two sons,
Franklin and Samuel, who emigrated to Georgia, in 1852, and located in
Hickory Flat, in Cherokee County.  The latter was a Colonel in the
Confederate army, and after the close of the war, was a delegate to the
convention that framed the new constitution of the State.  Robert
emigrated to Missouri and was a farmer; he was killed by the fall of a
tree, leaving several children; some of his sons had distinguished
themselves as breeders of Durham cattle, in that State and Illinois. The
two remaining brothers of the old family, Peter and James, emigrated to
Bourbon County, Ky., in the spring of 1786 and located on Cane Ridge in
the North Middletown Precinct; here they battled against canebrakes,
forests and the privations of life, which distinguished the lives of all
the pioneers in this famous part of nature's wilderness, and were
identified with all the hardships and privations to which the pioneers of
new countries are always subjected.  Peter married Mary Lucky, whose
parents and her two brothers, Joseph and Robert, and a sister who married
And. Ireland, from Virginia, had come from Shenandoah County, Va.  The
same year, the Houstons came from "the old North State" and bought land
adjoining them.  James returned to his native State, and married Nancy
Alexander and brought her on horseback, through the howling wilderness,
to his adopted home.  They raised four sons, viz: James, Levy, Abner and
Samuel.  The first married Rachel Alexander, moved to Lawrence County,
Ind., lived a successful farmer until he was eighty-five years of age, and
died, leaving a large family of children in his adopted county.  The second
son married Abbie Kenney, sister of the late Victor Kenney of Bourbon; he
was for many years a Magistrate of Bourbon, lived a successful farmer and
merchant at Ruddel's Mills, and died at eighty years of age, leaving no
children.  The third married Sallie Horton, of Bourbon, emigrated to Cass
County, Mo.; was a well-to-do farmer, died in his eighty-fifth year,
leaving two living children; Arbell and James. The fourth and last married
Mary Foster, lived on Cane Ridge until his sixty-sixth year, a prosperous
farmer, and died childless.  Peter Houston, the other pioneer, was a
remarkable man.  He was born Nov. 15, 1765; and although yet in his teens
he joined his father in the Revolutionary war, and did good service during
the last two years of that fearful conflict. He was tall and commanding in
person, was highly endowed and liberally educated.  And after his location
in Bourbon, he devoted all his spare time to reading and research,
especially in matters of religion, being as was his brother James a devoted
Presbyterian.  And so close was his application and so vast was his memory,
that at forty years of age he could repeat from memory almost the entire
Bible.  And in 1801, when the Reformer, Barton Warren Stone, began his
great revival at Cane Ridge he was one of the first to accept the new
doctrine; he renounced Presbyterianism and was immersed by Stone, as was
his brother James. Thence, from house to house he visited and exhorted his
fellowmen to join in the reformation, and thus greatly swelled the ranks of
the reformers; he was also instrumental in building the meeting-house,
still standing, and called "Old Cane Ridge" on the spot where the Reformer
held his great revival meeting. He helped to cut, hew, haul and build the
logs used in that far-famed edifice.
     In politics he was a Whig, and an uncompromising emancipationist,
freeing his own servants and refusing to receive several that came to him
by inheritance.  And when Kentucky declared in favor of her second
constitution, he canvassed the county urging the citizens to instruct
their delegates to abolish slavery in their new constitution and made
hundreds of converts to his policy.  But it failed in the convention.
After a long and useful life, he and his wife died in their ninety-first
year; he never wore spectacles, and, at his death had lost but one tooth
and that was kicked out when a boy, by firing a musket at a wild turkey.
At his death he left six children, all sons, viz: John, Carey, Richard,
Harvey, Alford, and Samuel.  John emigrated to Tennessee, married, was a
prosperous farmer, and died in his eightieth year, leaving several
children; Carey married Jane Campbell, emigrated to Monroe County, Ind.,
lived the life of a farmer, died at seventy-five and left several children;
Richard married Rachel Smith, located in Bloomington, Ind., was a mechanic,
and died at seventy-four, leaving children; Harvey married Ibba Hamilton,
located in Monroe County, Ind., was a successful farmer, and died at
seventy-two years of age leaving three children; Alford married Jane Smith,
was a farmer in Monroe County, Ind., died at seventy-two, leaving several
children; Samuel alone, of the six brothers, remained in Bourbon.  He was a
remarkable man and widely known.  He was born in 1781, March 5, he was tall
and dignified, was talented and well educated, and had a wonderful memory,
he could read a page or hear a speech and repeat, cither, from memory
almost verbatim.  His father educated him for the ministry and then placed
him under the care and tutorage of the Reformer Barton Stone. But one
year of application convinced him, as well as his tutor, that his tact was
not theological.  He possessed wonderful pantomime and mimic qualities,
and his descriptive powers were grand.  These qualities inclined him to
the stage, and he was prevented from adopting the dramatic profession with
the greatest difficulty by his father.  He then married Morning Adams,
daughter of John Adams; who was an immigrant from Maryland, and claimed to
be a near relative of John Adams, the president, for whom he was named.
After his marriage, his father placed him on a small farm, that he might
try his hand in agriculture.   At this he labored during cropping
seasons, and devoted the remainder of his time in executing any and all
jobs he could engage from his neighbors; and so apt was he in architecture
that he learned to complete a house in all its parts, stone work,
carpentering, plastering and painting, and did so complete many; he helped
to build the old Paris jail, and the bridge there across the Stoner.
Like his father, he was a Whig and emancipationist and a member of the
Christian Church.  When the war of 1812 came on, he volunteered his
services, but the day before his company was to march, a messenger came
informing him that his oldest child was very ill, when he was permitted
to substitute Jerry Terry in his place, and reached home just in time to
see his child die.  In 1827, he sold his farm, with a view to going West,
but having ruptured a blood vessel in his lungs, he remained on rented
land, hoping to recover, but finally died at the age of forty-seven,
leaving nine children; five sons and four daughters, viz: Jonna, Irena,
Pattie, Mary, Washington, John Q. A., Jefferson P., Clinton M, and
Franklin W.  The two first died single, the third married Delany Yourk,
of Indiana, who is a wealthy farmer in Monroe County of that State;
Mary married Harrison Parks of Indiana, who is a farmer in LaSalle County,
Ills.; Washington married Nancy Parker, of Bourbon; and John Q. A.,
married Rachel Taylor, of Indiana; and both these brothers died ministers
of the Christian Church in Illinois; Jefferson P., married Sarah A.
Holtzman, of Bloomington, Ind., and is now a farmer and a breeder of
short-horn cattle, in Livingston County, Ills.; and Franklin W., married
Fannie L. Simpson, whose father, Levi Simpson, and whose mother Nancy
Priest, that was come to Bourbon from Shenandoah County, Va., in 1780.  He
still remains the only Houston in Bourbon of the old families. Franklin W.
was born in 1818, Sept. 22; completed his education at Indiana State
University in 1840, and studied law with a view to its practice, but his
health having failed, he was advised by his physician to abandon the law
and engage in agriculture, which advice he heeded.  And by cultivating
the soil and trading largely in mules and cattle, he succeeded in securing
a comfortable home upon which he now lives, near the homestead of his
grandfather, the old pioneer.  And still, at the age of sixty-three
years, he is devoted to his farm, and is a breeder of Durham cattle and
Cotswold sheep.  He has always been, and still is, with all his family, a
member of the Christian Church, and was for many years, previous to the
war, a regular lecturer to the congregation of North Middletown.  He was
eight years one of the magistrates of the county, and has ever been a
devoted friend of common schools and colleges, and had done much, and
given much, to advance educational interests.  He is also an advocate of
internal improvement and was chiefly instrumental in having inaugurated
the Bourbon plan of macadamizing public roads, and contributed liberally
for that purpose; he was also written considerably for the press, both
political and religious, and on a variety of topics, and in all respects
has ever been identified with the interests of his county and State. Thrice
was he nominated by the Republican party as a candidate for the State
Legislature, and twice made the race, but the Democratic party being
largely in the majority he was defeated.  Mr. H. [sic] has eight children,
viz: Nannie M., who married Daniel Boone, a farmer of Bedford, Ind., and
a near relative of the renowned pioneer; French W., who married Fannie
Wofford, of Tennessee, and now lives in Lonoke, Ark., trading in cattle
and hogs to Little Rock; Larua E., who married Dr. Albert G. Craig, of
Ghent, Ky., now a physician in Vevay, Ind.; Fannie L., who married Henry
C. Stone, of Bourbon, a farmer in the Flat Rock Precinct; Richard M.,
who married Ella Young, of Platte City, Mo., and is a merchant in
Humboldt, Kas.; Jefferson who is single and is with his father; Quene, who
married Joseph Rion, of Paris, Ky., and lives with her parents; and last
is Joseph Daniel, who is single, and is practicing law in Winfield, Kan.
This is a promising young man; he was educated at Kentucky University and
the Law College of Cincinnati; he is talented and education, commanding
in person and impressive in manner, and his friends predict for him a
bright future.  Already, though but twenty-three years of age, he has won
a wide notoriety by his eloquent, pointed and successful advocacy in
several important cases at the bar.  All of W. H.'s children are educated,
and members of the Christian Church.  In conclusion, Peter Houston is
authority for saying that the name Houston was originally spelled Houe-son,
and later Houseton, and still later Houston, and that some branches of the
family had, in his day, still further abridged it to Huston; that other
names had been similarly changed, resulting ins some instances in
forfeiture of estates, legatoes being unable to reconcile the spelling
of their names with that of the legators.  Such changes should not be
made without acts of legislation, to which posterity can appeal.

Houston Hamilton Clark Brown Alexander Lucky Kenney Horton Foster
Campbell Smith Adams Yourk Parks Parker Taylor Holtzman Simpson
Priest Boone Wofford Craig Stone Young Rion Terry
=
Ghent-Carroll-KY Lawrence-IN Cass-MO Monroe-IN Shenandoah-VA Iredell-NC
Cherokee-GA LaSalle-IL Livingston-IL TN AR VA OH IN MD KS Ireland

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/bourbon/houston.txt