Moses Austin

Moses Austin (October 4, 1761 – June 10, 1821) was an American businessman who played a large part in the development of the lead industry in the U.S. He was the father of Stephen F. Austin, a leading American settler of Texas, then part of Mexico. After receiving a land grant from the Spanish Crown in 1820, Moses Austin planned to be the first to establish an Anglo-American settlement in Spanish Texas, but died before his dream was realized. On his deathbed, he pleaded his son, Stephen F. Austin to fulfill his dream to colonize Texas. Stephen led the colony to a now sovereign Mexico, and in time, the settlers demanded autonomy and won independence in 1836 from the Mexico under President Antonio López de Santa Anna thereby establishing the Republic of Texas.

Austin was born October 4, 1761 to Elias Austin and Eunice Phelps Austin in Durham, Connecticut.

In 1784, he moved to Philadelphia to enter the dry goods business with his brother, Stephen. He then moved to Richmond, Virginia to open a second dry goods store.

In 1785, he married into the affluent iron mining family of Mary Brown, who then became known as Mary Brown Austin. The Austins' second child was born in 1793 and named Stephen Fuller Austin in honor of his father's brother and his mother's great uncle. Their daughter Emily Austin followed in 1795. James Elijah Brown Austin was born in 1803.

Austin sought to start his own mining business in southwestern Virginia, and in 1789 he traveled to southwest Virginia to look at a lead mine site. Moses saw potential in the site and by 1791 his family had joined him in what is now Wythe County. Moses and his brother Stephen and several other partners and individuals industrialized the area. Several smelters, furnaces, commissaries, the Jackson Ferry Shot Tower, blacksmith shops, liveries, and mills were established. The tiny village around the mines became known as "Austinville," and Moses came to be known as the "Lead King."

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