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'Serving Christ by inviting, teaching,
and discipling those within, to serve those
without'
Peach Point Cemetery
Stephen F. Austin had been writing his sister, Mrs. Emily A. Bryan, for
several years about the colonies in Texas. Each time that
he and his brother, James E. Brown Austin, worked up plans to move she and
her family to the new colony, something happened to delay the move. First
their mother passed away, then Mr. Bryan, Emily's first husband passed
away. She then remarried to Mr. Perry. Late in 1829, James E. Brown
Austin died. After several years of planning, it all came
together. In June of 1831, the family left Potosi, Missouri coming over
land to Texas. The family
arrived at San Felipe on August 14, 1831. In December 1832 the family moved
to Peach Point.
During the summer of 1833, the colonists faced another hard-ship as the
waters of the Brazos flooded the area. Mosquitoes and diseases like
malaria and cholera came in as the water left. On August 4, 1833, little
Mary Elizabeth Bryan, Emily's 11 year old daughter by her first marriage,
died of cholera. Mary was the first to be buried at the Peach Point
Plantation. At this time Stephen was enroute
to Mexico City on business.
Stephen had been sickly for several years. Even before Emily and her family
relocated to Texas, she had received letters from her sister-in-law,
Brown's wife, concerning Stephen's bad health. After returning from
Mexico, Stephen was working and living in a breezy two room office in the
capital in Columbia. Working on despite a severe winter cold, Stephen
attempted to ignore his illness, but became increasingly ill. In late
December he was ordered to bed-rest in an unheated shed room on the north side
of the clapboard house of Judge McKinstry in
Columbia. By then he was burning with fever, and the cold had developed
into "lung fever" or pneumonia as we know it. On Tuesday,
December 17, 1836, Stephen F. Austin, the "Father of Texas" was
dead. Two days later, at his request, his body was loaded on the steamboat Yellowstone and brought to Brazoria.
From there it taken over land to Peach Point. Near the family cemetery the
cavalcade was met by a detachment of Texas troops who had mustered to pay
respects. Mourners at the gravesite braced themselves against the
December wind. In attendance at Stephen's funeral were officials of the new
Republic of Texas standing alongside Stephen's friends, relatives and
slaves who had known and loved him. Stooping as the final prayer ended,
President Sam Houston picked up a symbolic handful of the rich Peach Point
soil which Stephen had loved and sprinkled it over the coffin. The
Father of Texas had at last found rest at Peach Point. On October 10,
1910, the State of Texas removed his body from the tomb and moved it to the
State Cemetery in Austin. A statue was erected over the grave in the State
Cemetery. The cemetery still serves the family and local community
today.
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