John Prince Coles

John Prince Coles's household in the Old Three Hundred included people he held in slavery. The colony census of March 1826 listed four enslaved people along with his wife, children and five servants, while he was building a mill on Yegua Creek. His title of August 19, 1824 covered eight and a half leagues in what are now parts of Burleson, Washington and Brazoria counties. His cedar log house became a public house, where David Crockett reportedly lost eighty dollars at poker on the way to the Alamo. Coles died on January 19, 1847.

What the plaque says

John Prince Coles A native of North Carolina, John Prince Coles brought his family to Texas in 1821 with Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists. Arriving in present Washington County on New Year's Day in 1822, Coles received a Mexican land grant in 1824. He founded Coles Settlement, which was later renamed Independence. He was appointed alcalde of the municipality of Washington by the Mexican government in 1828. After service in the Republic of Texas Army in 1836, he held a number of public offices, including senator in the First Republic Congress, 1840-41. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — steps away
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 12 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 12 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Navasota — 16 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.

More markers nearby

• Site of the Home of General Sam Houston and Family — steps away
• Dr. Horace G. Clark — steps away
• Female Department of Baylor University — steps away
• Columns of a Building of Old Baylor University — steps away