CHANCE, SAMUEL (ca. 1790-?). Samuel Chance, one of Stephen F. Austin'sqv Old Three Hundredqv colonists, was born in Georgia about 1790. He and his partner, Joseph H. Polley,qv received title to a league of land in Brazoria County, Texas, on July 27, 1824. The census of the Colorado District in 1825 and the colony census of March 1826 classified Chance as a farmer, a stock raiser, and a single man. He married a daughter of Joseph San Pierreqv and applied for land adjoining San Pierre's on the Navidad River. In November 1830 the ayuntamientoqv at San Felipe appointed Chance commissioner to report on the best route for a road from Jennings's crossing on the Colorado River to Brazoria. He may have served as a private in William H. Patton'sqv Columbia Company during the Texas Revolutionqv in 1836. The Austin Texas Sentinelqv of October 7, 1841, listed a Sam Chance as owing direct taxes on property in Jackson County. The Fraimville area of Burleson County (see HIX, TEXAS) was originally settled by two brothers named James and Samuel Chance. A Samuel Chance lived in Milam County in 1850.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugene C. Barker, ed., The Austin Papers (3 vols., Washington: GPO, 1924-28). Eugene C. Barker, ed., "Minutes of the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe de Austin, 1828-1832," 12 parts, Southwestern Historical Quarterly 21-24 (January 1918-October 1920). Lester G. Bugbee, "The Old Three Hundred: A List of Settlers in Austin's First Colony," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 1 (October 1897). Texas Gazette, November 6, 1830. Texas Sentinel, October 7, 1841.
