Austin Colony Pioneers is a collection of many families that came to Texas in its earliest days and the German settlers and their influences upon the growth of Texas. The book is filled with many anecdotes, short stories, obituaries and articles gleaned from area newspapers. These early families intermarried and not only filled Austin’s original colony but their descendants went to every corner of America. The book traces many of these early pioneers into the present day and also gives their roots before they came to Texas. Colonel William Barret Travis of the Alamo has been a constant element of Betty’s historical research because her family was connected to him in many ways. There are descriptions of persons of historical note such as that of General George Custer and his command of Hempstead, Waller County, after the Civil War. There are stories of towns that once flourished and today are no more. The pages are packed with accounts such as the Bell-Schaffner feud and Shootout in Sealy, Texas and tales of infamous Six Shooter Junction, of Elizabeth Ney, the famous sculptress, and many other historical places and persons of interest.

That part of Texas settled in the early 1820s known as the Austin Colony was comprised largely of the five present-day counties of Bastrop, Fayette, Grimes, Montgomery, and Washington. This book consists mainly of biographical and genealogical sketches of the pioneers and early settlers of those counties.

The Texas Equivalent of the Mayflower adventures, the three hundred families who settled Stephen F. Austin, s original colony formed the foundation on which a republic and then a state was built. In this revised and expanded edition of the book first published in 1991, many stories of those early Texians are told by their decendents.

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With more than 400 photographs, extensive interviews with the descendants of pioneer Jewish Texan families, and reproductions of rare historical documents, Natalie Ornish’s Pioneer Jewish Texans quickly became a classic following its original release in 1989. This new Texas A&M University Press edition presents Ornish’s meticulous research and her fascinating historical vignettes for a new generation of readers and historians. She chronicles Jewish buccaneers with Jean Lafitte at Galveston; she tells of Jewish patriots who fought at the Alamo and at virtually every major engagement in the war for Texan independence; she traces the careers of immigrants with names like Marcus, Sanger, and Gordon, who arrived on the Texas frontier with little more than the packs on their backs and went on to build great mercantile empires. Cattle barons, wildcatters, diplomats, physicians, financiers, artists, and humanitarians are among the other notable Jewish pioneers and pathfinders described in this carefully researched and exhaustively documented book. Filling a substantial void in Texana and Texas history, the Texas A&M University Press edition of Natalie Ornish’s Pioneer Jewish Texans brings back into circulation this treasure trove of information on a rich and often overlooked vein of the multifaceted story of the Lone Star State.

A broad and dramatic saga of the American westward migration to Texas between 1817 and 1825, this is the story of 300 families who made their way from all across the United States and four countries to settle in Austin's Colony in Mexican Texas. An in-depth, personal look at the families, this adventure considers why they came to Texas, how they got here, and what they shared together in the early years. Most of their stories begin a decade before their arrival on the banks of the Colorado and Brazos Rivers, from action during the War of 1812, through the early Texas filibusters and expeditions, and under the guidance of Moses Austin and his son Stephen F. Austin. It is at once a story of courage and sacrifice, dangers and tragedy, dedication to a dream and desire for a fresh beginning. The story is diverse and filled with unexpected surprises for both traveler and reader. There are American Indians resisting the settlers, pirates on the prowl, earthquakes and hurricanes and deadly floods taking their toll. These first mostly Anglo settlers included large families, young newlyweds, and single men in commercial partnerships, widows and widowers, the very young and the very old. Some brought slaves, some came destitute, and some came rich and eager. There were the scurrilous and the fugitives among the lot, all collectively signing on to Austin's Colony as the iconic Old 300. Author Paul N. Spellman teaches Texas History at Wharton County Junior College in Richmond, Texas.

The rugged character and indomitable spirit of the early pioneers of Stephen F. Austins Texas colony had their roots in a turbulent, distant past. From the early 1600s, their courageous ancestors had pushed westward, leaving the European shores to carve out a new nation from the wilderness. They fled religious and political oppression in search of a better life in which freedom was of supreme importance. Many came with tales of their former struggles in Londonderry, Ireland during the great siege, of terrible massacres and clan rivalries in the times of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland. They vividly remembered the tribulations of Martin Luther and the deadly religious split with the Catholic Church. More recently, memories of their parents participation in the American Revolution, of dramatic, true life scenes such as depicted in the movie The Patriot filled their minds, their fathers having ridden along side of the wily Swamp Fox, Francis Marion. These pioneers associated themselves with men like Travis, Crockett, Houston and Andrew Jackson. Many of these early trailblazers were Scots-Irish and German immigrants. They were on a westward trek to grasp a special prize, to seal Americas Manifest Destiny. And that prize they sought was Texas. From Jamestown to Texas is the story of these intrepid pioneers and their ancestors who cleared and farmed the land, who fought the Indians, battled the elements, and carved out this wonderful country that we have today.

The book leads the reader through the past to the present and here leaves him amid active and progressive men who are advancing, along with him, toward the future. Including, as it does, lives of men now living, it constitutes a connecting link between what has gone before and what is to come after. It is therefore fitting that it should be dedicated to a prominent man of our day in preference to one of former times. The matter presented, in the nature of things, is largely biographical. There can be no foundation for history without biography. History is a generalization of particulars. It presents wide extended views. To use a paradox, history gives us but a part of history. That other part which it does not give us, the part which introduces us to the thoughts, aspirations and daily life of a people, is supplied by biography. The men whose deeds are recorded in this book were or are deeply identified with Texas, and the preservation in this volume in enduring form of some remembrance of them—their names, who and what they were—has been a pleasant task to one who feels a deep interest and pride in Texas—its past history, its heroes and future destiny.