Home of George B. McKinstry

McKinstry traded in goods and in people. In January 1834 he bought two enslaved men through William B. Travis, and in April he contracted with Travis for three more. On November 25, 1836, he sold a man named Simon, about twenty-seven, to Stephen F. Austin for $1,200, a month before Austin died in McKinstry's house. Earlier, in December 1831, a Brazoria meeting sent him and Branch Archer to seek repeal of the decree closing Texas ports. Austin later wrote that McKinstry had done as much harm to Texas as any man.

What the plaque says

Home of George B. McKinstry (1802 - 1837) A member of Austin's Colony, 1829. Soldier in the Battle of Velasco; Delegate to the General Convention, 1832; Chief justice of Brazoria County, 1836. In this home, built about 1830, Stephen F. Austin died, December 27, 1836 Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 1.0 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 — 11 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.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 16 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.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 22 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

• Charlie Brown — 0.7 mi
• Columbia (First Capital of Texas) — 0.8 mi
• Columbia — 1.0 mi
• Columbia Rosenwald School — 1.0 mi