Traditional Muzzleloading Association
The Center of Camp => People of the Times => Topic started by: Craig Tx on November 22, 2025, 10:23:51 AM
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11/22/1821: Stephen F. Austin hires builder
On this day in 1821, James Beard (or Baird), one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, signed an agreement with Austin to come to Texas on the Lively and to work for him until December 1822 at building cabins and a stockade and cultivating five acres of corn.
Beard was a saddler from St. Louis, Missouri, who was later known as "Deaf" Beard. He joined Austin in New Orleans on June 18, 1821, and accompanied him on the Beaver to Natchitoches, Louisiana, and thence to Texas. According to the terms of the agreement, Austin was to provide tools, provisions, a section of land, and a town lot. Beard served as a cook and steward aboard the Lively and was left in command of the vessel while some of the passengers explored the Brazos River. On August 10, 1824, he received a sitio of land and settled on the San Bernard River in what later became Fort Bend County. The census of 1826 listed Beard as a single man aged between twenty-five and forty.
11/22/1849: Austin College incorporated
On this day in 1849, Austin College in Huntsville was incorporated.
The college was established by the Brazos Presbytery of the Old School Presbyterian Church as a men's college and theological school. It was founded at Huntsville by Daniel Baker, James Weston Miller, and William Cochran Blair, who were appointed by the presbytery in June 1849 to select a college site somewhere between the Brazos and Trinity rivers. Huntsville citizens provided $10,000 and five acres of land to secure the location. Sam Houston and Anson Jones--both presidents of the Republic of Texas--were charter members of the board of trustees. The school opened in the fall of 1850 and generally prospered until the Civil War and Reconstruction periods, when it lost enrollment and suffered financially. In 1876 the Texas Synod of the Presbyterian Church, United States, decided to move the college to Sherman, where the first college building was completed and fifty-three students were enrolled in 1878. After 1930 Austin College was strengthened by its consolidation with Texas Presbyterian College at Milford and has enjoyed its most dynamic period of growth in students, endowment, and campus facilities since 1950. In 2009 the college welcomed its first female president, Dr. Marjorie Hass, who served until 2017. That year, the school had a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,278 and was the oldest institution of higher learning in Texas still operating under its original charter.
Craig's Note:
What they're not telling you is that Autin College became Sam Houston State University in 1879. Which is my Alma Mater. I graduated in 1984.