Shepard Prettyman Houston lived as a gentleman farmer near Lewes¹ and acted as an active public figure² during the eighty-one years of his life.³ He was elected to the Delaware Legislature on four occasions, and served there as Speaker from 1865-1866.⁴

An empty trunk belonging to Shepard P. Houston was found in the Rabbit's Ferry House at the Lewes Historical Society. This prompted us to investigate Shepard Prettyman Houston further.

Houston acquired his land from his maternal grandfather, Shepard Prettyman, who sold him a little over two acres in the Lewes and Rehoboth Hundred for $25.17 in 1828, and an additional twenty-two acres in the same area in 1831.⁵

Many family members would join Houston during his lifetime on this piece of land. He married three times, and became the father of twelve children, many of whom died in infancy or early childhood.

His first marriage, to Susan Maull Houston in 1830,⁶ brought him into a family active public life. Susan’s father, Dr. Joseph Maull, was a physician who had been elected to the Delaware Senate in 1816 and 1820.⁷

It was during the years of his marriage to the daughter of this prominent political figure that Shepard P. Houston began his own political career -- he was elected to the Delaware Legislature for the first time in 1832.⁸

Houston’s first marriage also witnessed the birth of three children. The first of these, Joseph Maull Houston, died at only two months, but a daughter, Sarah Priscilla Houston, and a second son, also named Joseph Maull Houston, would survive well into adulthood. Houston’s first wife, herself, however, died in 1835 at the age of only 26.⁹

After Susan’s death had left Houston a widower, his first father-in-law, Dr. Maull, continued to be prominent in public life. Dr. Maull was elected to the Delaware Senate in 1838 and again in 1842, and in 1845, he was elected Speaker of the Senate. As such, he became Governor of Delaware when Governor Thomas Stockton died on March 2, 1846,¹⁰ but he would serve in that capacity only briefly, since he died two months after his term began.¹¹ Dr. Maull’s will named his grandchildren, Sarah Priscilla Houston and Joseph Maull Houston, as heirs, and their father, Shepard P. Houston as one of the executors.¹²

In the meantime, Houston had remarried, and his second wife, Ruth Craig Orr Houston, like his first, was short-lived. Ruth died in 1849 at the age of 27, after six years of marriage, during which she had borne Houston three children. The first of these, Elizabeth Paynter Houston, died at only 18 months, but the two others, Mary Ruth Houston and William Paynter Houston, would both live relatively long lives.¹³

Houston’s third and last wife, Magaretta Boddy,¹⁴ whom he espoused in 1852,¹⁵ actually lived on past his death, although her actual life, which lasted only sixty-seven years, was not as long as his.¹⁶ Five of the six children born to this marriage, however, died much earlier deaths. Only the last, a daughter, Lola, survived past childhood.¹⁷

While married to Margaretta, Houston continued his political career,¹⁸ becoming elected to the Delaware Legislature in 1865, 1875 and 1879.¹⁹ While serving as a member of the Delaware House of Representatives in 1869, he was called upon to vote for or against the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave the vote to blacks. Houston joined a “nay” vote, which was unanimous in the Delaware House, and barely missed unanimity in the entire Legislature -- in the Senate there were only two “yeas.”²⁰

Although Houston’s career would end with his death on March 22, 1887, his descendants would continue to appear in prominent Delaware families. In 1873, his granddaughter, Ida Lurana Nicholson, had married William M. Ross, the son of a Governor of Delaware, W.H.H. Ross. Ida was the daughter of Sarah Priscilla Houston, and her husband, George William Nicholson.²¹

©2002-2005 The Lewes Historical Society