Empresario James Power
Refugio, Refugio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born in Ireland, Colonial James Power came to New Orleans in 1809 and to Texas in 1823. With fellow Irish Empresario James Hewetson (1796-1870), he was awarded contracts to settle Irish Catholic and Mexican families between the Guadalupe and Lavaca Rivers. Their territory was extended in 1830 to the Nueces. Power went to Ireland to recruit colonists. On the return voyage sickness and shipwreck tragically reduced their numbers. In 1835 he urged his colonist to garrison Goliad, and battled staunchly against hostile Indians. He was a fine diplomat and helped secure Indian neutrality during the Texas Revolution. A close friend General Sam Houston, Power signed both the the Texas Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In 1838 he was commissioned to conclude a treaty with the Lipan Indians. In 1842 he was briefly imprisoned by a Mexican invasion force. He represented Refugio in the Republic of Texas Senate and at the Annexation Convention of 1845. Power married twice, to Dolores (d. 1836) and later Tomasa Portilla, Spanish-born daughters of Empresario Felipe Portilla, and had seven children. He died at Live Oak Point, his principal home, in 1852, and was reintered at Mount Calvary Cemetery, Refugio, about 1872.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Ireland, James Power reached Mexican Texas in 1823 and, with fellow Irishman James Hewetson, won empresario contracts to plant Irish Catholic and Mexican families along the coastal plain between the Guadalupe and Nueces. His recruiting voyage from Ireland ended in sickness and shipwreck, yet the colony endured. A friend of Sam Houston, Power signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and Constitution and later served in the Republic's Senate.
Why it matters
The empresario system turned the Texas coast into a patchwork of ethnic colonies, and Power's Irish settlers helped bind that frontier to the young republic.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1820s and 1830s, Mexican Texas was being settled through the empresario system — a policy under which the Mexican government granted contractors, called empresarios, the right to bring in colonists to populate its sparsely settled northern frontier. It was a way of turning empty maps into working communities, and it drew settlers not only from the United States but from across the Atlantic.
James Power was one of those Atlantic arrivals: born in Ireland, he reached New Orleans in 1809 and Texas in 1823. Together with a fellow Irishman, James Hewetson, he won contracts to settle Irish Catholic and Mexican families along the coastal plain between the Guadalupe and Lavaca rivers, a territory later extended toward the Nueces. The Catholic faith of the Irish made them a natural fit for colonizing Catholic Mexico's frontier.
This coast was a genuine borderland — contested ground where colonists, the Mexican government, and Native peoples all met, sometimes in trade and diplomacy, sometimes in conflict. The families Power planted here would soon find themselves living through the birth pangs of an entirely new nation.
People & events
Power's biography is one of the most eventful the coast can claim. To fill his colony he sailed all the way back to Ireland to recruit settlers — and the return voyage turned tragic, as sickness and shipwreck cut down many of the very people he had gathered. That the colony survived at all, after such a beginning, is a testament to the stubbornness of both the empresario and his people.
When the Texas Revolution came, Power threw himself into it. He urged his colonists to garrison Goliad, fought in the defense of the frontier, and — crucially — worked as a diplomat. The marker credits him with helping secure Native neutrality during the revolution, and later with being commissioned to conclude a treaty with the Lipan. In a conflict where the settlers could ill afford enemies on every side, keeping the frontier peaceful was as valuable as winning battles.
A close friend of Sam Houston, Power signed both the Texas Declaration of Independence and the new Constitution, then served the young republic as a senator and as a delegate to the 1845 Annexation Convention. His personal life was woven into the region's Spanish-Mexican elite: he married twice, both times to Spanish-born daughters of another empresario, and raised seven children. In 1842 he was briefly imprisoned by a Mexican invasion force — a reminder that even after independence, this coast remained dangerous ground. He died in 1852 at his home at Live Oak Point.
Its place in the American story
Power's life illuminates a chapter of the American story that often gets flattened into a simpler tale of Anglo pioneers. The Texas coast was in fact a patchwork of ethnic colonies — Irish, Mexican, and more — and the empresario system was the mechanism that stitched them onto the frontier. Power's Irish Catholic settlers are a vivid reminder that the peopling of Texas was a multinational project, drawing immigrants straight from Europe into the heart of the continent.
His diplomacy points to another truth the broader narrative can obscure: the crucial, often decisive role of relations with Native nations. Power's work to keep Native peoples neutral, and his later treaty commission, show that the fate of the young republic hinged not only on battlefields but on negotiation and alliance across cultures.
And as a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a senator, and an annexation delegate, Power sits at the founding of a republic that would soon become part of the United States. An Irish immigrant helping to write the founding documents of a new nation on the edge of the continent is the American immigrant story in one of its earliest and boldest forms.
If you visit
This is a monument in Refugio, the town Power represented and the community his colony helped seed. Come to it as the anchor of a coastal-Texas history stop, and let the marker do something maps rarely do — remind you that this whole stretch of coast was once an Irish colony in Mexican Texas.
As you read, hold the two halves of Power's life together: the tragedy of a recruiting voyage undone by sickness and shipwreck, and the long public career that followed — soldier, diplomat, signer, senator. The marker notes he was first buried at his home at Live Oak Point and reinterred at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Refugio about two decades later, so the town keeps his memory in more than stone.
If you're touring the sites of the Texas Revolution, this is a fine place to broaden the story beyond the famous battles. Power urged his colonists to garrison Goliad, so a visit here pairs naturally with the Goliad sites nearby, and it adds the Irish and diplomatic threads that the big-name battlefields tend to leave out. Stand in Refugio, look toward the coastal plain between the rivers, and picture the families who crossed an ocean to make it home.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · James Power
- · James Hewetson
- · Sam Houston
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Refugio County
Refugio, TX
Refugio takes its name from Mission Nuestra Señora del Refugio, the last Spanish mission founded in Texas, established in 1791 to draw Indigenous people of the coast into Catholic mission life. When Mexican Texas reorganized in 1835 and the revolution created new counties in 1836, Refugio became one of them, with the old mission town as its seat. The county was formally organized in 1837.
Irish Immigrants in Refugio
Refugio, TX
Refugio's roots reach back to Ballygarrett in County Wexford, Ireland, home of empresarios James Power and James Hewetson, who won Mexican permission to bring more than 200 Irish families to Texas in the 1830s. The first colonists arrived in 1834, surviving cholera and shipwreck-rough surf before settling near the old Spanish mission of Nuestra Señora del Refugio. Almost at once they were swept into the fight for Texas independence, and their descendants still farm land granted to their ancestors.
Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church
Refugio, TX
This parish traces its origins to the Spanish mission Nuestra Señora del Refugio, established in 1791 and relocated to this area in 1795—among the last missions founded in Spanish Texas. After earlier buildings were razed, an impressive Victorian/Romanesque sanctuary rose here in 1901, and the church still reflects the unusual blend of Spanish and Irish Catholic heritage that settled this stretch of the coast.
Site of One of the Homes of James Power
Fulton, TX
Irish-born James Power came to Texas as an empresario, winning authority in 1828 with James Hewetson to settle 200 families along the coast. He served his adopted country under three flags as colonizer, soldier, and statesman, and in 1836 he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. This site near Live Oak Point marks one of the homes of a man the State of Texas honored with this monument in 1936.