Stephen Fuller Austin was one of the great men of Texas in its early days. He was born in 1793 in Austinville, Virginia. His father, Moses Austin, went to Texas in 1821 to establish a colony there, but died the same year.
Texas was then a part of Mexico. In 1822, Stephen Austin got permission from the Mexican government to settle a colony of several hundred American families in Texas, as his father had planned to do. In 1833 the American colonists sent Austin to Mexico City, capital of Mexico, to ask the Mexican government to allow Texas to have a separate state government of its own.
The Mexicans refused and put Austin in prison for a year. When he was released from prison and returned home he found the Texans in revolt against Mexico. For a time he was commander-in-chief of the Texas army that fought against Mexico. Later he was sent to the United States to get money and supplies for the army of Texas. In 1836, when Texas had become an independent country after defeating the Mexicans, he ran for the presidency of Texas but was beaten by Sam Houston. However, he became secretary of state under President Houston. Austin died in December, 1836.
Spiders In The Garden
Watching for their prey in the centre of a radiating geometrical snare, we often find the garden spiders. The beauty of their vertical orb-webs and the large size of these strikingly marked creatures always attract our attention during summer strolls.
Jack & Jill The Vulture Twins
Probably this story of Jack and Jill, the Vulture Twins, would never have been written, if Betsy, Farmer Parsons' old brindle cow, had not refused to come up from the woods one night. But she wouldn't come, so Farmer Parsons had to go down after her.
At Home With Mr. Burroughs
Youth still peered out at me in spite of his crowning thatch of silvery hair when I first met John Burroughs in 1904. As we walked together on our way to his rustic little house in the woods called "Slab-sides,"
