DARST, JACOB C. (1793–1836). Jacob C. Darst, Alamo defender, son of David and Rosetta (Holman) Darst, was born in Woodford County, Kentucky, on December 22, 1793. He was a farmer. In 1813 he married Elizabeth Bryan in St. Charles County, Territory of Missouri. After her death in 1820, he married Margaret C. Hughs. Darst, his wife, and his two children left for Texas in 1830 and arrived in DeWitt's colony on January 10, 1831. Darst registered for twenty-four labores of land on the Guadalupe River above Gonzales and also for one labor on a small creek that empties into the Lavaca. In September 1835 Darst was one of the original "Old Eighteen," defenders of the Gonzales cannon. On February 23, 1836, he was mustered into service in the Gonzales Ranging Company of Mounted Volunteers. He entered the Alamo with this unit on March 1, 1836, and died in the battle of the Alamo five days later.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Daughters of the American Revolution, The Alamo Heroes and Their Revolutionary Ancestors (San Antonio, 1976). Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Muster Rolls of the Texas Revolution (Austin, 1986). Bill Groneman, Alamo Defenders (Austin: Eakin, 1990). Ethel Zivley Rather, "DeWitt's Colony," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 8 (October 1904).
