The Munsons of Texas — an American Saga
Stephen Fuller Austin
Inset 1
THE AUSTIN COLONY
Stephen F. Austin's Texas colony had been established six years prior to the arrival of the Henry William Munson family. Moses Austin, a native of Connecticut, was, in 1820, the owner of a bankrupt mining company in the Missouri Territory. At this time Spain still controlled all of Mexico, and Moses Austin had learned from contacts in New Orleans about New Spain's new empresario land-grant policies designed to attract settlers to their northern state of Tejas. He therewith got the inspiration to apply for a large empresario grant to settle 300 American families (on a fee basis) and to sell parcels of his own personal grants to later settlers from the United States. He vigorously undertook development of his plan including making an exhausting trip to San Antonio de Bexar, where he gained permission from the Spanish Governor to establish the colony. However, he died unexpectedly soon after his arrival home in Missouri in June of 1821. By this time the Mexican revolution against Spanish authority was in full bloom.
Moses' son, Stephen Fuller Austin, was then 27 years old. He was
born in Virginia in 1793, was raised in Missouri,
attended school in Connecticut for a short time, and completed his
studies at Transylvania University in
Lexington, Kentucky. Having been aware of his father's plans from
the beginning, he reluctantly took up the endeavor and diligently
carried it out. He continually faced and overcame the most trying
of circumstances which surely would have defeated a less patient
and persistent man. He went to San Antonio de Bexar where, in
August of 1821, he again received Spanish authorization to colonize
his father's grant, just as Spanish officialdom was losing control
of Mexico. He then went to New Orleans where he publicized the
scheme, and the first settlers began arriving from Louisiana in
December. They camped with Stephen F. Austin on January 1, 1822, at
New Year Creek, a spot which retains that name today. Texas' famous
"Old Three Hundred" were the first three hundred families who
settled in the Austin Colony between 1821 and 1827. The Henry
William Munson family arrived in 1828. 
