James Franklin Perry

Perry came to Texas on a condition. Austin wrote in 1830 that Perry had been granted eleven leagues, provided he moved his family before January 1, 1832. Perry opened a San Felipe store, sold it in 1834 and turned to Peach Point full time. During the revolution he drew up a plan for forts on Galveston Island, at the mouth of the Brazos and on Matagorda Bay. In 1839 he declined the Republic's treasury post. Yellow fever killed him at Biloxi on September 13, 1853, three days after his son Henry died there.

What the plaque says

James Franklin Perry (September 19, 1790 - September 13, 1853) A native of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, James Franklin Perry moved to Potosi, Missouri, in 1808. He joined the mercantile business of his relatives Samuel and John Perry, and became a partner in 1818. While living in Potosi, Perry met and married Emily Margaret Austin Bryan, a widow with four children. They were eventually the parents of six additional children. Emily's father, Moses Austin, and her brother, Stephen F. Austin, were pioneer leaders in the movement to colonize Texas. Upon the urging of Stephen F. Austin, James and Emily Perry and their family moved to texas in 1831. James Perry established a mercantile business in San Felipe and a farm on Chocolate Bayou. By 1832 the family moved to Peach Point Plantation on the Brazos River. James Franklin Perry was an active supporter of the Republic of Texas, serving at conventions and on the Committee of Safety. As executor of Stephen F. Austin's estate, his reports to the government concerning colonial affairs, maps, and land papers became important to the archives of Texas. Perry died of yellow fever while visiting Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1853 and is buried there. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 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.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 12 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.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 16 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.

More markers nearby

• William Joel Bryan — steps away
• Major James Peckham Caldwell — steps away
• Henry William Munson — steps away
• Emily Margaret Brown Austin Bryan Perry — steps away