History of Texas, Together with a Biographical History of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson Counties. Page: 108

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Jalapa, Mexico, he became suddenly and violently
enamored of a beautiful lady and married
her, promising that he would return to
her after accomplishing his mission. After
various adventures he reached New Orleans,
two days before the memorable battle of January
8, 1815. He at once volunteered as aid
to General Jackson, whom he had known
when a boy, and he fought bravely in that
decisive action.
He afterward returned to Mexico and joined
his wife, with whom he lived happily many
years. In 1827, when the Fredonia war
broke out at Nacogdoches, Texas, he was
colonel commanding the Mexican garrison at
that place. In 1835 he returned to Jalapa,
Mexico. In 1843 he was still living in Mexico,
as an officer on the retired list of the
army of that nation. A volume containing
an account of his almost fabulous adventures
was written by himself in 1817, and published
soon afterward.
STEPHEN FULLER AUSTIN, who carried out
the scheme of his father, Moses Austin, in
the founding of what was known as the Austin
colony, was born November 3, 1793, at
Austinville, Wythe county, Virginia, while
his father was interested in lead mines there.
In 1804 he was sent to Colchester Academy,
in Connecticut, and a year afterward to an
academy at New London, same State. At
the age of fifteen he became a student at
Transylvania University, in Kentucky, where
he completed his education. When twenty
years of age he was elected a member of the
Territorial Legislature of Missouri, and was
regularly re-elected until 1819, in which year
he went to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he
was made Circuit Judge of that Territory.
From there he removed to New Orleans, in
order to co-operate with his father in the
projected colonization scheme. On the death

of his father he determined to carry out the
enterprise himself, in deference to the wishes
of his deceased parent.
Stephen F. Austin was well adapted as a
leader of settlers in an unknown country. In
his childhood he had been inured to a frontier
life, and his broad intellectual capacity
enabled him to utilize many lessons to be
learned from the wild West. This, together
with his legislative experience in Missouri,
and experience as an executive of Territorial
laws, enabled him to be a good ruler, diplomatist
or commissioner. But as a military
commander he had no ambition. As to his
temper, he himself published that he was
hasty and impetuous, and that he had forced
upon himself a stringent discipline to prevent
a fit of passion that might destroy his
influence. In his disposition he was openhearted,
unsuspecting and accommodating
almost to a fault. He was therefore often
imposed upon, especially in the minor demands
of benevolence and justice in social
life. He excelled in a sense of equity, constancy,
perseverance, fortitude, sagacity, prudence,
patience under persecution, benevolence,
forgiveness, etc.
He was never married. During the first
years of his residence in Texas, his home
was at the house of S. Castleman, on the
Colorado. Later, when his brother-in-law,
James F. Perry, removed to the colony, he
lived, when in Texas, with his sister at Peach
Point plantation, in Brazoria county. Besides
this sister he had a younger brother, named
James Brown Austin, who was well known
in Texas.
COLONEL DAVID CROCKETT, one of the most
original, typical Western characters that ever
lived, and the bravest hero of the Alamo,
was born in east Tennessee, on the Nola
Chucky river, at the mouth of Limestone

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MISTORY OP' TEXAS.