Stephen F. Austin

Stephen F. Austin


Stephen Fuller Austin was born November 3rd 1793 in Austinville, Virginia. At age five his family moved to Missouri. Austin attended school in Connecticut and graduated with honors from Transylvania University in Kentucky.
Prior to coming to Texas Austin worked in his father’s general store and eventually took over the management of the family mining business. Austin served as a director of a failed bank, militia officer, and was a member of the Missouri territorial legislature. In 1821 the governor of Arkansas appointed Austin as a circuit judge.
It was Austin’s father who took the first steps toward establishing an American colony in Mexican Tejas. Though not thrilled with his father’s idea he decided to cooperate. Moses Austin traveled to San Antonio in 1820 to petition for a l...