ern World. It has been said that the Scotch-Irish make history and leave to others the task of writing it; and those who write it do so often from an unfriendly point of view.

The present writer has attempted to give a fair account of one Scotch-Irish family and their associates. The story here related is the common heritage of the Houstons of all America, as well as those of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia and other parts of the world.

With the end of the 18th century, a critical era in the his.tory of Western civilization came to a triumphant conclusion with the establishment of a stable, vigorous independent nation on the North American Continent. With the year 1800, we close the saga of the Houston ancestors and leave for other chroniclers the history of the worthy offspring of these stalwart sires.

Even so, a brief glance at the intervening years from 1800 to the present seems in order. Since the close of what might be termed "the ancestral period," the family has produced war heroes, religious leaders and college presidents. It has supplied able lawyers, doctors, actors, scientists and successful industrialists; inventors, farmers and merchants. Some are engaged in the space program. In the field of government, besides countless local officials, there have been congressmen, senators and governors. One of the name, David Franklin Houston, served eight years in President Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet. Another, General Sam Houston, hero of San Jacinto, was President of the Republic of Texas, twice Governor of the State of Texas and U. S. Senator. Earlier he had served as Governor of Tennessee.

In the Library of Congress are more than 370 books written by Houstons and Hustons ranging from fiction to scientific treatise. A recent issue of "Who’s Who in America" lists 16 Houstons and eight Hustons. The British "Who’s Who" names one Houstoun and two Hustons, one of the latter being John Huston, film producer and writer, who became an Irish citizen in 1964. He is the son of the distinguished American actor, Walter Huston.

There are several thousand Houstons in Scotland and other thousands in Northern Ireland, but the great majority reside in the United States, which might well be called the family’s third home. There is no accurate way of determining the number of Houstons in the United States, but a fairly good esti-