Old Oakland Plantation
Freeport vicinity, Brazoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded 1828 by Henry Wm. Munson, who bought site from Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas. This land joined Peach Point Plantation, Austin's home. Munson, one of Texans in uprising over injustices at Anahuac and Velasco in 1832, died in yellow fever epidemic in 1833. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Henry William Munson founded this plantation in 1828 on land bought from Stephen F. Austin himself, next door to Austin's own Peach Point. Munson was among the Texans who protested Mexican injustices at Anahuac and Velasco in 1832—early sparks of the coming revolution—before yellow fever cut his life short in the epidemic of 1833.
Why it matters
It ties the plantation frontier of Austin's colony directly to the grievances that ignited the Texas Revolution.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the late 1820s, Texas was part of Mexico, and Stephen F. Austin was leading the most successful effort to bring Anglo-American settlers into the region. Under agreements with the Mexican government, Austin's colony took in hundreds of families. Many settled along the fertile bottomlands of the lower Brazos River, near the Gulf Coast in what is now Brazoria County.
This coastal country was well suited to plantation agriculture, especially cotton and, later, sugar. Plantation agriculture in Austin's colony depended heavily on enslaved labor, even though Mexican law was increasingly hostile to slavery. That tension was one of several sources of conflict between the colonists and the Mexican government.
By the early 1830s, relations were growing strained. Mexico tried to tighten control over immigration and customs in Texas, and some colonists bristled at the officials and garrisons sent to enforce the new rules. The coast was also a dangerous place to live: epidemic disease swept through low, humid settlements, and the early 1830s brought deadly outbreaks to the lower Brazos.
People & events
Henry William Munson founded this plantation in 1828 on land he bought directly from Stephen F. Austin, the empresario remembered as the "Father of Texas." The land bordered Peach Point Plantation, which the marker identifies as Austin's home. Munson's neighbors were at the center of the colony's leadership.
In 1832, Munson was among the Texans who rose up over what they saw as injustices at Anahuac and Velasco. At Anahuac, on Galveston Bay, colonists clashed with the Mexican military commander over arrests and his heavy-handed rule. At Velasco, at the mouth of the Brazos not far from this site, colonists fought Mexican troops at the fort there. These clashes are often remembered as early sparks of the troubles that led to the Texas Revolution a few years later.
Munson did not live to see that revolution. He died in 1833 in a yellow fever epidemic, only about five years after founding Oakland. His short life fits a pattern common on the coastal frontier, where ambitious settlers built new lives fast and too often lost them just as fast to disease.
Its place in the American story
Old Oakland Plantation ties together several threads of the American story. It belongs to the great westward movement that carried American settlers past the nation's borders into Mexican Texas. That movement eventually led to Texas independence, annexation to the United States, and the Mexican-American War. Few places link those events as directly as the farms of Austin's original colony.
Munson's role in the 1832 disturbances links this land to the early stages of the Texas Revolution. The grievances and confrontations that began along this coast helped lead to a war that redrew the map of North America.
The plantation's history also includes harder truths. The Brazos plantations were built largely on enslaved labor, and the defense of slavery was one of the issues in the colonists' disputes with Mexico. A full understanding of sites like Oakland means remembering the enslaved people whose work made them possible, even when their names do not appear on the marker.
If you visit
The marker sits in the low coastal country near Freeport, where the Brazos nears the Gulf of Mexico. The landscape is flat and green, with wide skies, wet bottomlands, and Gulf air. As you take it in, picture the early 1830s: scattered plantations along the river, dirt tracks and waterways connecting them, and colonists watching tensions with Mexico rise.
Little may remain of the original plantation, so treat the stop as a chance to imagine the place. Remember how close you are to the heart of Austin's colony and to Velasco, where some of the 1832 fighting happened. Respect any private land around the marker.
This stop pairs well with other Brazoria County historic sites tied to the Texas Revolution and Austin's colony. The area is rich in markers and museums about Texas's founding years. Combine it with time on the Gulf Coast for a road trip that mixes history with beaches, birding, and coastal scenery.
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
- · Henry William Munson
- · Stephen F. Austin
Related events
- · Anahuac and Velasco disturbances, 1832
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ellerslie Plantation
Jones Creek, TX
John Greenville McNeel came to Texas in 1822 as part of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred," and near this site rose Ellerslie, one of the region's largest sugar plantations. Its 21-room brick mansion, immense sugar mill, hospital, and slave cabins were built with bricks made by enslaved people, whose forced labor powered the whole enterprise. After McNeel's 1876 death the property passed to relatives, and fire, storm, and time erased the buildings one by one, the last lost in 1983.
Major Reuben R. Brown
Jones Creek, TX
Reuben R. Brown joined the Matamoros Expedition in January 1836 during the Texas War for Independence and rode in the detachment that captured horses from the Mexican general Urrea's forces. Taken prisoner in a counterattack, he endured eleven months of captivity in Mexico before escaping, and in old age lived with his daughter — who had married into the family of Moses Austin, whose vision first opened Texas to colonization.
Emily Margaret Brown Austin Bryan Perry
Jones Creek, TX
Emily Austin was the sister of Stephen F. Austin, the empresario who led the first Anglo-American colonization of Texas. Raised in the lead-mining town of Potosi, Missouri, that her father Moses Austin helped found, she twice married and raised a large family before bringing her household to Texas in 1831 to join her bachelor brother. From the family's Peach Point Plantation she offered Stephen a home and counsel during the crucial years of colonization and the Texas Revolution, and her descendants went on to help build the new republic and state.
James Franklin Perry
Jones Creek, TX
A Pennsylvania-born merchant who made his fortune in Missouri's frontier trade, James Franklin Perry married Emily Austin and, urged on by her brother Stephen F. Austin, moved his family to Texas in 1831. He built mercantile and farming interests and settled at Peach Point Plantation on the Brazos River. As an active supporter of the Republic of Texas and executor of Stephen F. Austin's estate, his careful stewardship of Austin's maps, land papers, and reports preserved records now central to the Texas archives.