AUGUSTINE, HENRY WILLIAM (1806–1874). Henry William Augustine, pioneer, soldier, and public official, was born in South Carolina in 1806. He moved to Texas from Autauga County, Alabama, in 1827 and settled in the Ayish Bayou District with his wife, Cynthia. In 1832 he was appointed to a committee of fifteen to select the townsite of San Augustine, which was founded in 1834. At the battle of Nacogdoches on August 2, 1832, Augustine was battalion commander of the San Augustine regiment. On October 17, 1835, he raised a company in San Augustine to join the Texas volunteer army to march against the Mexican forces at San Antonio de Béxar; meanwhile, he became a delegate to the Consultation in San Felipe, after which George English succeeded him as company captain in the siege of Bexar, December 5–10.
In the First and Second congresses of the Republic of Texas, Augustine served as senator from San Augustine. He resigned his post on November 24, 1837. During the Córdova Rebellion in August 1838, Gen. Thomas J. Rusk dispatched Major Augustine with 150 men to help quell the trouble. While commanding a company in the Cherokee War in 1838, Augustine received an arrow wound that resulted in the amputation of his leg at the knee. By a special act of the Congress of the republic he was given a wooden leg. He represented San Augustine in the House of the Fifth Congress, 1840-41, and was appointed to the Board of Trustees, San Augustine University, on February 16, 1843. After the death of his wife, Augustine filed for guardianship of their children, on April 30, 1849. About 1855 he moved from San Augustine County to Polk County, where he died in 1874. A state plaque marks his gravesite in Magnolia Cemetery, Segno.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Austin: Daniell, 1880; reprod., Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1978). George L. Crocket, Two Centuries in East Texas (Dallas: Southwest, 1932; facsimile reprod., 1962). Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832–1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941). Gifford E. White, Character Certificates in the General Land Office of Texas (1985).
