Empresario James Power

Power learned of Mexico's empresario contracts from Stephen F. Austin while working as a merchant in New Orleans, then moved to Saltillo, took Mexican citizenship and dealt in mining equipment, which is where he formed his partnership with Hewetson. After independence he founded Aransas City beside his home on Live Oak Point in 1837, with a wharf, a store, a post office and a customs operation, and became its mayor in 1839. The town was gone by the mid-1840s. The revised Handbook history of the Karankawas names Power among the businessmen who promoted the annihilation of the coastal tribes.

What the plaque says

Empresario James Power Born in Ireland, Colonial James Power came to New Orleans in 1809 and to Texas in 1823. With fellow Irish Empresario James Hewetson (1796-1870), he was awarded contracts to settle Irish Catholic and Mexican families between the Guadalupe and Lavaca Rivers. Their territory was extended in 1830 to the Nueces. Power went to Ireland to recruit colonists. On the return voyage sickness and shipwreck tragically reduced their numbers. In 1835 he urged his colonist to garrison Goliad, and battled staunchly against hostile Indians. He was a fine diplomat and helped secure Indian neutrality during the Texas Revolution. A close friend General Sam Houston, Power signed both the the Texas Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In 1838 he was commissioned to conclude a treaty with the Lipan Indians. In 1842 he was briefly imprisoned by a Mexican invasion force. He represented Refugio in the Republic of Texas Senate and at the Annexation Convention of 1845. Power married twice, to Dolores (d. 1836) and later Tomasa Portilla, Spanish-born daughters of Empresario Felipe Portilla, and had seven children. He died at Live Oak Point, his principal home, in 1852, and was reintered at Mount Calvary Cemetery, Refugio, about 1872. (1976)

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Refugio County — steps away
• Refugio County Courthouses — steps away
• Sally Scull — steps away
• Irish Immigrants in Refugio — steps away