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Stephen F. Austin hires builder
On this day in 1821, James Beard (or Baird), one of Stephen F. Austin's
Old Three Hundred colonists, signed an agreement with Austin to come to
Texas on the Lively and to work for him until December 1822 at
building cabins and a stockade and cultivating five acres of corn. Beard
was a saddler from St. Louis, Missouri, who was later known as "Deaf"
Beard. He joined Austin in New Orleans on June 18, 1821, and accompanied
him on the Beaver to Natchitoches, Louisiana, and thence to
Texas. According to the terms of the agreement, Austin was to provide
tools, provisions, a section of land, and a town lot. Beard served as a
cook and steward aboard the Lively and was left in command of the
vessel while some of the passengers explored the Brazos River. On August
10, 1824, he received a sitio of land and settled on the San Bernard
River in what later became Fort Bend County. The census of 1826 listed
Beard as a single man aged between twenty-five and forty.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- BEARD, JAMES
- OLD THREE HUNDRED
- AUSTIN, STEPHEN FULLER
- LIVELY
- SAN BERNARD RIVER
- SITIO
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas (1963)
- Austin College incorporated (1849)
- "Father of Houston Heights" dies (1933)
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