Austin, Stephen F
founder of the state of Texas, was born about 1790. In 1821 he conducted a party of emigrants from New Orleans to take possession of a tract of land granted to his father by the Mexican government, and they settled where the city of Austin now stands. In 1833 the Texas colonists formed a constitution, and applied for admission to the Mexican confederacy, but Mexico being in a state of anarchy, he failed to find recognition. In 1835 he went as commissioner to the United States to promote the liberation of Texas from Mexico, but did not live to see it admitted into the Union. He died Dec. 27, 1836, in Texas.