Stephen F. Austin
San Felipe, Austin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Stephen F. Austin, Father of Texas, November 3, 1793-December 27, 1836. He planted the first Anglo-American colony in Texas, "The Old Three Hundred". In his several colonies he settled more than a thousand families. He was from 1823 until 1828 the actual ruler of Texas and thereafter its most influential leader. His own words are a fitting epitaph: "The prosperity of Texas has been the object of my labors -- the idol of my existence -- it has assumed the character of a religion -- for the guidance of my thoughts and actions" -- and he died in its service. No other state in the union owes its existence more completely to one man than Texas does to Austin. Erected by the State of Texas 1936 with funds appropriated by the Federal government to commemorate one hundred years of Texas independence.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This monument honors Stephen F. Austin, the 'Father of Texas,' who between 1823 and 1828 effectively governed the young colony and planted the famed 'Old Three Hundred,' settling more than a thousand families across his colonies. Erected by the State of Texas in 1936 with federal centennial funds, it marks the San Felipe region where his colonizing effort took root. His own words—calling the prosperity of Texas 'the idol of my existence'—serve as his epitaph.
Why it matters
Few states owe their origins so directly to one person; Austin's colonization set the course for Texas's transformation from Mexican frontier to American state.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
San Felipe de Austin
San Felipe, TX
San Felipe de Austin, founded in 1824 on the Brazos River, was the unofficial capital of Stephen F. Austin's colony and the principal town of Anglo-American settlement in Mexican Texas. As the political and commercial hub of the colonists, it hosted the conventions and the 1835 Consultation that set Texas on the road to revolution, and it was home to Texas's first English-language newspaper. The town was burned in 1836 during the "Runaway Scrape" as settlers fled the advancing Mexican army before the Battle of San Jacinto.
Wade Cemetery
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Wade Cemetery began in 1846 on the sprawling plantation of William Wade, a Mississippi planter who came to Texas in the 1820s and amassed over 11,000 acres of Republic of Texas land along the Brazos. His wife Hulda's grave is the oldest here; later generations—including a son who fought for the Confederacy—and neighbors from the Brookshire and Fulshear communities were laid to rest alongside the family.
Hartsville Cemetery
Wallis, TX
Established in 1899, Hartsville Cemetery serves a community near Wallis in Austin County at the close of the 19th century. Designated a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2006, it preserves the graves of the farming families who settled this part of the Brazos bottomlands. Such burial grounds often survive as the clearest record of vanished rural hamlets.
Elemelech Swearingen
Cat Spring, TX
Born in Kentucky in 1805, Elemelech Swearingen brought his family to Texas in 1831 and, when another applicant withdrew, became one of the very last additions to Stephen F. Austin's celebrated 'Old 300' colonists. He farmed near what became Millheim in Austin County, served as its first postmaster, and during the Texas Revolution fought as a second sergeant under Captain Amasa Turner before joining the ill-fated Mier Expedition. He and his wife Angelina raised nine children on the land where they are buried.