Austin, Moses (1761-1821), was an American industrialist and the organizer of the first settlement of United States citizens in Texas , then part of Spanish Mexico . Austin was one of the chief founders of the lead industry in the United States. His plans to build a colony in Mexico were ultimately realized by his son Stephen F. Austin , who became known as the “father of Texas.”
Moses Austin was born in Durham, in what is now the northeastern state of Connecticut, on Oct. 4, 1761. He started a dry-goods business in Connecticut in 1782. Dry goods businesses generally sold textiles and such products as tobacco and tea. In 1783, Austin joined his brother Stephen to start a similar business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Moses Austin married Mary Brown in 1785. The couple had five children. In the late 1780’s, Austin established Moses Austin and Company in Richmond, Virginia . In 1789, the company won a contract to construct a lead roof atop the Virginia State Capitol. Austin acquired the state’s richest lead deposit and built a mine and a settlement, now called Austinville, at the site.
In the late 1790’s, Austin established a settlement near rich lead deposits in Spanish Louisiana, in what is now the Midwestern state of Missouri . He gained control of most of the region’s lead smelters (furnaces that melt ore to extract lead) and amassed great wealth. In 1816, he joined with a group of businessmen to found the Bank of St. Louis. He lost much of his investment when the bank folded three years later. Austin then developed a plan to start a colony of U.S. settlers in what is now the Southwestern state of Texas. Texas was then part of Spanish Mexico. Austin officially submitted his proposal to the Spanish during a visit to San Antonio, Texas, in December 1820. In March 1821, soon after he arrived back home in Missouri, Austin received the news that the Spanish had approved his colonization plan. On his deathbed, he requested that his son Stephen carry out the plans for the Texas colony. Moses Austin died on June 10, 1821.
