Isaac Best

Best's Fort, the refuge the plaque places in Kentucky, stood in Montgomery County, Missouri, where Isaac Best moved in 1808 and built a mill. He took his family and several enslaved people to Texas in 1824 and received title to a sitio east of the Brazos on August 19. The 1826 census lists him as a farmer and stock raiser with a wife, three sons, two daughters and four enslaved people. In 1833 William B. Travis subpoenaed him as a witness in a case against Isaac Clower. Best died near Pattison in 1837.

What the plaque says

Isaac Best (1774-1837> One of the "Old 300" settlers of Stephen F. Austin's colony, Isaac Best spent his early life in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, where he built a mill and Best's Fort, a pioneer refuge during the War of 1812. He brought his wife Mary Margaret (Wilkins) (1776-1852) and some of their nine children to Texas about 1824. He received a land grant east of the Brazos River about 30 miles north of San Felipe. He later sold that tract of land and purchased additional land, eventually increasing his holdings to about 8,000 acres. Best Creek (one-half mile west) is named for him. (1973, 1995)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site — 5.7 mi
  Stephen F. Austin's colonial capital on a Brazos bluff, the town of the Consultation and the first Texas newspapers, burned by its own garrison in the Runaway Scrape of 1836.
• Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge — 20 mi
  Ten thousand acres of native coastal prairie northeast of Eagle Lake, kept for a critically endangered grouse, many of whose birds are hatched in captivity and released here.

More markers nearby

• James Tarrant Pattison Homesite — 0.8 mi
• Judge Edwin Waller — 1.5 mi
• Kellner Townsite — 3.8 mi
• Captain Nathen Brookshire — 4.5 mi