The descendants of this John Houston who landed at Charleston made up a remarkable family. Quoting from the S. R. Houston book: "Tradition says ‘they were true blue-stock.ing Presbyterians, ingrained in the blood’. The father, as described by his daughter-in-law, David’s wife, was ‘a high-toned gentleman, strictly honest, nice and proud’ of his children."

John could look with pride on his eight children, a family of hardy pioneers, but son David gave to America a tribe of twelve to make a worthy contribution to the emerging new nation. In this family were a lawyer, Russell, two physicians, Dr. Pugh and Dr. James Houston, and the eldest daughter, Jane, was the wife of General P. J. Irons. But the most distinguished of all was George S. Houston who served two terms of Governor of Alabama and then was elected to serve his state in the United States Senate.

David had departed from strict family Presbyterian tradition by marrying a Quaker wife, a Miss Reagan. This likely caused quite a ripple in the family at that period, but the time was arriving when the clannishness of the Houstons and the Scotch-Irish was breaking away for a broader American life. Possibly the Revolutoinary War and the years immediately following had much to do with this wider vision. Houstons came out of their remote valleys to march, not only with their Scotch-Irish neighbors, but with the German immigrants, "the Pennsylvania Dutch," the sprinkling of their old enemies, the Irishmen, who had arrived lately, and the English colonists who by this time were the seaboard aristocracy. However, there was little love lost with the native Scottish settlers, who were generally British loyalists, and particularly with the late influx of Scottish Highlandcrs, who strangely enough, fresh from the last crushing blows of the English, were almost universally Tories.

While it is claimed that some of the Scotch-Irish of the Carolinas were isolated in the mountains as civilization passed them by, this was not generally the case and certainly not the fate of the Houstons. From the David Houston family alone, descendants of the next generation or two spread to Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas.

Certain personality traits have been mentioned by writers as peculiar to the Scotch-Irish, including the Houstons. It is interesting to find an imminent historian asserting that "there can be no question that there is a distinct Scotch-Irish type of frame and physiognomy. It is well known and easily recog-