Site of the Home of John Austin

Before the battles, Austin was a merchant. He and his partner J. E. B. Austin ran a cotton gin and a store at Brazoria until the partner died in 1829, and in 1828 John laid out the town itself on land granted to Stephen F. Austin. In August 1833 cholera swept the lower Brazos, and he died of it at Gulf Prairie, in the same epidemic that killed two of his children. The Connecticut-born commander who took the surrender at Velasco did not live to see Texas independent.

What the plaque says

Site of the Home of John Austin Member of Long's Expedition in 1819. Pioneer settler in Austin's colony. Alcalde of Brazoria, 1832. Commander at the Battle of Velasco. Signer of the Turtle Bayou Resolutions; died in 1833

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 6.3 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.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 8.7 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.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 16 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.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 22 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.

More markers nearby

• Don Carlos Barrett — steps away
• Dr. Sofie Deligath Herzog — 0.2 mi
• Brazoria Townsite — 0.2 mi
• Site of Jane Long's Tavern — 0.3 mi