Stephen F. Austin

Born in Wythe County, Virginia on November 3, 1793, Stephen Fuller Austin was educated at Transylvania University in Kentucky before serving in the Missouri territorial legislature. Following the death of his father Moses Austin in 1821, Stephen took up the Spanish land grant to colonize Texas. Traveling to Mexico City to re-negotiate permissions with the newly independent Mexican government, Austin skillfully secured contracts and established the San Felipe de Austin colony, settling the historic "Old Three Hundred" families along the Brazos and Colorado rivers. Renowned for his pragmatic diplomacy, legal drafting, and fluent Spanish, Austin maintained peaceful relations with Mexican authorities for over a decade while organizing the Texas Rangers to protect frontier settlements. When tensions escalated over centralization under Santa Anna, Austin traveled to Mexico City in 1833 to petition for separate Texas statehood, resulting in his wrongful imprisonment for eighteen months. Realizing peaceful reform was impossible, Austin declared that "War is our only recourse," serving as commander of the Texian Volunteer Army at the Siege of Bexar before traveling to the US to secure vital diplomatic, financial, and military support. Following the 1836 victory at San Jacinto, President Sam Houston appointed Austin the first Secretary of State of the Republic of Texas. He died of pneumonia two months later at age forty-three; Houston officially announced: "The Father of Texas is no more."