Stephen Fuller Austin was born in 1793 to Moses and Maria (Brown) Austin. Austin attended school in Connecticut and then spent two years at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He then went to work for his father's business in Missouri. After the failure of the Austin business in Missouri, he investigated opportunities for a new start in Arkansas and engaged in land speculation and mercantile activities. While Stephen worked as a circuit judge of the first judicial district of Arkansas, his father, Moses, traveled to San Antonio to apply for a land grant and for permission for 300 families to settle in Texas. After hearing of his father's death, Austin left for San Antonio and arrived in August of 1821. Governor Antonio María Martínez permitted Stephen F. Austin to carry on the colonization enterprise under his father's grant, and the first colonists began to arrive in Texas by land and sea in December 1821. [2]

The school was founded in 1923 and named Stephen F. Austin Teachers College after Stephen F. Austin, the father of Texas. In 1969, it received university status and changed its name to Stephen F. Austin State University. The idea to erect a larger than life of Stephen F. Austin occurred during the Texas Sesquicentennial. [1 & 2]

The Stephen F. Austin statue is in the Stephen F. Austin State University campus's Sesquicentennial Plaza, in front of the Ralph W. Steen Library. Richard MacDonald sculpted the bronze and pink Texas granite statue, and it was dedicated in 1986. [3]

For more (including 4 images) view the original article

The statue was erected to honor the soldiers who fought for Texas’s freedom. Dr. Morris K. Jackson and a group of other area researchers (Peggy Jasso, Trisha Perkins, and Jeff Opperman) spent over 160 hours identifying 194 individuals from the 1835 Nacogdoches County who participated in the Texas Revolution In order to qualify to be on this list, the soldier’s name should be found in a muster roll for military service sometime between Oct. 1, 1835, to the end of the Texas revolution on April 21, 1836, the soldier should have received bounty or donation land as proof for his service, and he should have some tie or connection to Nacogdoches. Behind the statue, there are plaques that list the soldiers from the Siege of Bexar, the Siege of the Alamo, the Battle of San Jacinto, Ranger and Militia Soldiers, the Texas Navy, the Battle of Goliad, and the Battle of Matamoros. [1 & 2]

Harry Weber presented multiple sketches, and members of the Charles and Lois Marie Bright Foundation and Friends of Historic Nacogdoches, Inc. chose the final design. The dedication took place on April 27, 2017, and the state is located in the public lot facing Main Street, next to the intersection of Church Street and Main Street. [2]

For more (including 4 images) view the original article

This statue is located on the south side of Main Street in Nacogdoches just east of the square and features Sam Houston (1793-1863) and Cherokee Chief Bowl (1756-1839). On February 23, 1836, Sam Houston and Chief Bowl signed a treaty granting Cherokees land in East Texas. The Republic of Texas did not honor the treaty and war broke out between the Texans and local tribes. [2]

Chief Bowl, the principal chief of the Cherokees in Texas, was born in North Carolina around 1756. Between 1810 and 1819, Chief Bowl and his people moved around until they settled just north of Nacogdoches. In Texas, Chief Bowl became the primary "civil" chief or "peace chief" of a council that united several Cherokee villages. Starting in 1822, Bowl began negotiations with the Mexican government for a land grant or land title for the Cherokees in East Texas. He cooperated with the Mexican government in putting down the Fredonian Rebellion, but still did not receive a land grant. In 1833 he made another attempt to secure from the Mexican government land on the Angelina, Neches, and Trinity rivers, but negotiations were interrupted by political unrest in Texas. Finally, in 1833 Chief Bowl and Sam Houston negotiated a treaty guaranteeing the tribe possession of lands occupied in East Texas. However, after the Texas Revolution, the senate of the Republic of Texas invalidated the treaty. Afterward, Chief Bowl allied with people wanting a Mexican re invasion of Texas. Because of this brief alignment, President Mirabeau Lamar ordered Chief Bowl and his people to leave Texas. Unwilling to leave, Chief Bowl mobilized his warriors to resist expulsion. On July 16, 1839, Chief Bowl was killed in the Battle of the Neches. [3]

Friends of Historic Nacogdoches, Inc. sponsored this bronze statue, and Michael Boyett (1943-2015) sculpted it, and the dedication was on June 7, 2003. [4]

For more (including 4 images) view the original article

~ Thomas Jefferson Rusk [1]

Thomas J. Rusk was the oldest child of John and Mary (Sterritt) Rusk. He was born in South Carolina, but in 1834 he found himself in Texas chasing embezzlers from a company in which he had invested in. The next year he supported the independence movement when he and his men joined Stephen F. Austin’s army in Gonzales, but Rusk left the army before the siege of Bexar. [2]

Thomas Jefferson Rusk signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, was the Secretary of War for the Republic of Texas, a Brigadier General of the army and hero at San Jacinto, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas, and a United States Senator. The city of Rusk and Rusk County are named after him. The State of Texas placed a Texas Centennial Celebration monument at his and his wife’s gravesite at Oak Grove Cemetery, which is in Nacogdoches, Texas. [2]

The Thomas J. Rusk statue is located on the northeast corner of Main and North/South Streets diagonally across from the county courthouse. Friends of Historic Nacogdoches, Inc. sponsored the bronze statue sculpted by Paula Devereaux-Kurth in 1999. [3]

For more (including 6 images) view the original article

Lasting only eighteen minutes, the Battle of San Jacinto was the definitive ending to Mexico’s control of its northernmost province of Tejas y Coahuila and the birth of the Republic of Texas. Starting around four o’clock in the afternoon, General Sam Houston and the Texas Army led a surprise charge and defeated Mexican President and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and his Army of Operations on April 21, 1836. As the short battle unfolded, a bullet struck General Houston in the left ankle. Meanwhile, Santa Anna, the self-proclaimed “Napoleon of the West,” disappeared. Over the next few days, General Sam Houston ordered a search of the surrounding area to locate any Mexican soldiers who had escaped. The day after the battle, Sergeant J.A. Sylvester and his men, Joel W. Robinson, Joseph D. Vermillion, Alfred H. Miles, and David Cole, found a Mexican private hiding in tall grass near Vince’s Bayou. As Sylvester and his men took their captive back to the Texan camp, they realized he was more than just a common soldier. The captured Mexicans, held in a makeshift stockade, recognized the new prisoner. Many stood at attention while others cried “El Presidente!” With his identity known, Texas soldiers presented Santa Anna to Sam Houston. Surrounding them were members of the Texas Army, yearning to exact revenge on the Mexican President for his atrocities committed against Texans at the Battle of Goliad and at the Battle of the Alamo. With the aid of a translator, Houston spared Santa Anna’s life – despite his army’s wishes against it – and Santa Anna wrote an order commanding all Mexican armies to return to Mexico effective immediately. As the next few days progressed, officials from Mexico the new Republic of Texas negotiated the Treaty of Velasco. Texas soldiers took Santa Anna to Velasco so he could sign the treaty, which recognized the independence of Texas. Texas officials then sent Santa Anna back to Mexico via the United States.

For more (including 5 images) view the original article