Site of Dream Colony of Jane McManus

Jane McManus went to Texas in 1832 with her brother Robert to buy land for the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company, which her father, a New York congressman, helped found. In 1833 her plan to settle German colonists collapsed when they refused to go beyond Matagorda. Robert stayed and became a wealthy planter. She wrote for the New-York Tribune, the Sun and the Democratic Review, pressed for annexation, and in 1845 undertook a secret peace mission to Mexico for President Polk. She drowned in 1878 when the steamer Emily B. Souder, bound for Santo Domingo, went down.

What the plaque says

Site of Dream Colony of Jane McManus Prospective colonial leader who in 1832 hoped to settle thrifty Europeans on a Mexican grant, which she never received. Mrs. McManus, daughter of a U.S. congressman from New York, was a family friend of Stephen F. Austin, "Father of Texas". Joining her Texas venture was her brother, Robert McManus, who later fought in the war for Independence. Although her colonial plans failed, Jane McManus remained enthusiastic about Texas. For years in the 1850s she and her second husband, Gen. Wm. Cazneau, lived in Eagle Pass. She is said to have been an advisor for the U.S. peacemakers after the Mexican War. Outside Texas she had a career as a New York journalist and author. She died in 1878 when a ship was lost at sea as she journeyed to her estate in Jamaica. Although Austin was the most famous leader in Texas colonization, other empresarios included Green DeWitt, Hayden Edwards, Robert Leftwich, Frost Thorn, Martin DeLeon, Ben Milam, Gen. Arthur G. Wavell, David G. Burnet, John Cameron, James Hewetson, James Power, Juan Dominguez, Juan Antonio Padilla, Thomas J. Chambers, Gen. Vicente Filisola, J.C. Beales and Jose M. Royuela. Mrs. McManus was the only known lady colonizer. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 29 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.
• Matagorda Island — 37 mi
  A 38-mile barrier island reached only by boat from Port O'Connor, with a lighthouse of 1852, the ghosts of two towns and a fort, and no water, power or cars.

More markers nearby

• Matagorda Lodge No. 7, A.F. & A.M. — 0.3 mi
• Matagorda Methodist Church — 0.3 mi
• City of Matagorda — 0.3 mi
• Christ Church — 0.3 mi