As an impresario, Stephen F. Austin brought 300 American families to his deceased father’s land patent to settle the Texas territory. Austin’s continuing colonization of Texas increased the size of the state by a third and led to the eventual statehood of Texas. He also founded the Texas Rangers. /SFALiveOak.jpg?n=9818 "SFA Live Oak")
Austin died Dec. 27, 1836, at a friend's home in Brazoria County near West Columbia, Texas. Upon hearing the news, President Sam Houston said, “The Father of Texas is no more. The first pioneer of the wilderness has departed.”
Several live oak trees stood on that West Columbia home site and they remain there today. The SFA Live Oak at the Ruth Bowling Nichols Arboretum was grown from a seed taken from those trees.