Born in Austinville, Virginia, Stephen F. Austin moved with his family to Missouri in 1798. As an adult, he became interested in politics and served in the Missouri territorial legislature from 1814 to 1819. During the Panic of 1819, Austin’s father, Moses Austin, obtained a land grant from Spanish Mexico to bring American settlers to Texas, then a part of Mexico. After Moses Austin died, Stephen Austin carried out his father’s plan and brought the first American families to Texas in 1822. Austin became the leader of the settlement and as it grew, he asked Mexico for its independence. In 1833 he was jailed for his request. Released in 1835, Austin returned to Texas to be named leader of the army in the settlement’s fight for independence. He missed the actual fighting when he traveled to ask the U.S. government for aid. When he returned to Texas in 1836, he ran for president of the new republic but was defeated by war hero Sam Houston. Austin served as Houston’s secretary of state for a brief time before dying in the city that bears his name.
