Sam Houston was born in Virginia in 1793. Prior to his arrival in Texas in 1832, he served in the United States Congress as a representative for Tennessee and, later, as its governor. His leadership abilities made him a natural as commander-in-chief of the Texan troops at the battle of San Jacinto, which secured the republic’s independence from Mexico in 1836. Houston served as the first and third president of the young republic; however, he envisioned Texas as part of the United States of America. With statehood, Houston served fourteen years as a senator for Texas and in 1859 was elected governor. Refusing to sign the order to secede from the Union he had diligently worked to join, Sam Houston forfeited his office and died in 1863.

In 1851, Charles Richard Meade (1826–1858) and his brother Henry William Matthew Meade (1822–1865) photographed Houston at their New York gallery. The Meade brothers were highly admired in their day. Their subjects included Kit Carson, Commodore Matthew C. Perry, Napoleon III, and Louis Daguerre, the inventor of the photographic process. The Meades’ portrait of Sam Houston was long thought to be lost, known only through Elijah C. Kellogg’s 1852 lithograph. In 1990, the full plate daguerreotype was discovered and shortly thereafter acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (92.444).