RAWLS, BENJAMIN (?-1840?). Benjamin Rawls, a partner of Owen H. Stout^qv as one of Stephen F. Austin's^qv Old Three Hundred^qv families, probably came to Texas from Missouri. The partners received title to a sitio^qv of land in what is now Matagorda County on August 3, 1824. The census of March 1826 classified Rawls as a farmer and stock raiser, a single man aged between twenty-five and forty. He was likely related to Daniel and Amos Rawls,^qv as all three men's land grants adjoined on Caney Creek. In January 1827 in the District of Mina, a Ben Rawls signed a declaration of loyalty to the Mexican government that protested the Fredonian Rebellion,^qv and in October 1835 a B. Rawles was among the volunteers under George Morse Collinsworth^qv who signed a pledge to give protection to the citizens of Goliad, provided that they support the republican principles of the Constitution of 1824.^qv A Benjamin Rawls, who may or may not be the original colonist, was with the troops under Philip Dimmitt^qv at Goliad in January 1836. In March 1838 Rawls received a bounty warrant for 320 acres of land for service from October 1835 through January 1836. Sometime after 1835 he married William Kincheloe's^qv widow, Mary (Betts) Kincheloe, daughter of Jacob Betts.^qv The couple had one child. Rawls's will was probated in July 1840.

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). John H. Jenkins, ed., The Papers of the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836 (10 vols., Austin: Presidial Press, 1973). Matagorda County Historical Commission, Historic Matagorda County (3 vols., Houston: Armstrong, 1986). Thomas L. Miller, Bounty and Donation Land Grants of Texas, 1835-1888 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967). Texas State Gazette, August 28, 1852.