They came to Texas from twenty-four states and five countries, a thousand men, women, and children comprising three hundred families, moving away from their past and forward to an uncertain futue. There were large families and there were single men, widows and widowers, rich and poor, honest and scurrilous, religious and agnostic. Between 1819 and 1824, they came on horseback and in wagons, aboard schooners and in pirogues, down the vague trails that led them across the Red River and the Sabine, and along the often treacherous Gulf coast. Some exhibited remarkable courage and fierce commitment to their journey, wihile others dicovered the dangers and fear that would ultimately drive them back to their points of origin. As Empresario Stephen F. Austin attempted to organize them as his first colonists and settle them along and between the Colorado and Brazos rivers, the legend and lore of the "Old 300" emerged. This is the remarkable saga of their journeys across the American frontier.
 
Author: Dr. Paul N. Spellman
Publication date 2014
Paperback.
Signed by the author.
 
About the author:
Paul N. Spellman, PhD, is Professor of Texas and U.S. History at Wharton County Junior College in Richmond, Texas, where he resides with his wife Kathleen.
 
Other books by this author include:
Race to Velasco (Hendrick-Long Publishing Company)
Forgotten Texas Leaders: Hugh McLeod and the Texan-Santa Fe Expedition (Texas A&M University Press)
Spindletop Boom Days (Texas A&M University Press)
Captain John H. Rogers, Texas Ranger (University of North Texas Press)
Captain J.A. Brooks, Texas Ranger (University of North Texas Press)
Wharton: Images of America (Arcadia Publishing Company)