Sam Houston, general of the army that won the war for Texas Independence in 1836 and first president of the Republic from 1836 to 1838, was one of the most controversial and colorful figures in Texas history. During his eventful career he lived in Nacogdoches, Liberty, Houston, and Austin. He and his wife Margaret (Lea) built Woodland in 1847 as a town home, and Houston wrote to a friend that it was a "bang up place!" and that the climate was "said to be healthy." Houston and his wife lived there while he served as a U.S. senator from 1846 to 1859, perhaps the happiest and most prosperous years of his life, and four of their eight children were born there. The house was built in a style common to the South at the time, with squared logs covered by hand-hewn, whitewashed boards, while the detached kitchen and law office were built of unfinished, squared logs. In 1859 Houston was elected governor, but although he opposed secession, he could not keep Texas from joining the Confederacy in 1861. After he was deposed from office, he returned to his second Huntsville home, the Steamboat House, where he died in 1863.