Abraham Darst

The Darsts came to Texas by water, a long way round. The family went down the Missouri and Mississippi on a raft, took a boat from New Orleans to Velasco and waited at Bailey's Landing on the Brazos until they found land. The Mexican government gave Darst a league and a labor in 1831, now the site of Damon, though it then lay in Fort Bend County. The family farmed and ranched. His brother Jacob died at the Alamo, and Abraham himself died in December 1833, little more than two years before the war in which his sons fought.

What the plaque says

Abraham Darst Emigrated to Texas from Missouri in 1827 as an Austin colonist. Participated in the Battle of Velasco, 1832. Five of his sons were in the Army of Texas in 1836. Born May 14, 1786; died in December, 1833. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 11 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 11 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 21 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 31 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.

More markers nearby

• Samuel Damon — steps away
• Damon Cemetery — steps away
• Needville Methodist Church Cemetery — 8.8 mi
• W. H. Abrams Well No. 1 — 9.3 mi