“The world will take care of Houston’s fame.”

So says the epitaph – by Andrew Jackson – on the monument marking Sam Houston’s grave. Houston’s monument, sculpted by artist Pompeo Coppini and installed in 1911, features Houston on horseback riding off in victory. The torches – upside-down – symbolize that victory has been won. The upside-down Roman axes signify that the battle is over.

Buried just behind Houston is his good friend, Henderson Yoakum. An illustrious politician, soldier, and writer (he wrote a two volume “History of Texas” in 1855), Yoakum remains close by his friend in death, just as he did in life.

Huntsville’s Oakwood Cemetery, is a beautifully quiet place covered in shade trees and artistically-rendered monuments. It is the final resting place of General Sam Houston, perhaps the most well-known figure in Texas history. Houston spent his last remaining years at the residence known as the “Steamboat House”, located nearby on the grounds of the Sam Houston Memorial Museum at Sam Houston State University.

Elsewhere in this historic cemetery you’ll find the grave of Houston’s slave Joshua Houston, freed in 1862 but who remained in Huntsville where he succeeded in business. The remains of Henderson King Yoakum, author of the first comprehensive history of Texas and written in 1855, are buried nearby as well as those of George Fitzhugh, American sociologist whose grandson, Marcellus Foster, founded the Houston Chronicle, and the famous Marine and World War I veteran John William Thomason, author of Fix Bayonets!