EARLE, THOMAS (?-?). Thomas Earle (Earl), one of Stephen F. Austin's^qv Old Three Hundred^qv colonists, received title on July 7, 1824, to a league and a labor of land in what became Harris County; in 1825 he settled on Buffalo Bayou near William Vince.^qv In March 1825 Earle wrote Austin requesting some timberland on Green's Bayou and asked also for land for his son James and for Alexander Kilpatrick. In September 1825 he got into difficulties for taking equipment from the schooner Mary. The census of 1826 classified Earle as a farmer and stock raiser aged between forty and fifty. His household included his wife, Jane, two sons, five daughters, and two servants. In April 1827 Earle arrived at the mouth of the Trinity River on the schooner Augusta with four or five families on board. In February 1834 he was defendant in a lawsuit. He was administrator for Luke Moore's^qv estate in 1837. In February 1838 Earle offered half his league on Buffalo Bayou for sale. He served on the grand jury in Houston in 1840 and was still living on Buffalo Bayou in 1845. That he was the Thomas Earl, aged sixty and a native of Ireland, who was living in Harris County in 1850 is doubtful. Sources indicate that Earle probably died before 1850.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugene C. Barker, ed., The Austin Papers (3 vols., Washington: GPO, 1924-28). 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). Adele B. Looscan, "Harris County, 1822-1845," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 18-19 (October 1914-July 1915). Marion Day Mullins, First Census of Texas, 1829-1836, and Other Early Records of the Republic of Texas (Washington: National Genealogical Society, 1959). Telegraph and Texas Register, February 10, 1838, May 6, 1840. William Barret Travis, Diary, ed. Robert E. Davis (Waco: Texian, 1966).