MCNAIR, JAMES (?-?). James McNair, a partner of A. W. McClain as one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred families, moved to Texas in 1822. On July 24, 1824, the partners received title to a league of land now in Colorado County. On January 10, 1825, McNair was a judge in the election that chose James Cummins alcalde for the Colorado District. The census of March 1826 listed him as paired with James Cook instead of McClain as holder of a headright. At that time McNair was a single man aged between twenty-five and forty. On March 3, 1836, he wrote his brother from Matagorda that he had been drafted into the militia and planned to join the army the next day. The brother, William McNair of New York, wrote to Stephen F. Austin in August 1836 asking what had happened to his brother.

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). Leonie L. Weyand, Early History of Fayette County, 1822-1865 (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1932).