In July 1830 Stephen F. Austin saw that his map of Texas was out. He wanted copies "for presents to Mexicans," he wrote, and expected the publisher, Henry S. Tanner, to "realise more by that map, than by any thing he ever published in his life." Near the San Saba River the map marked a silver mine. The mine behind the mark was a failed Spanish prospect more than 70 miles away; copied and repeated, the mark made it a lost mine. That is his part in Sam Bass and the Spanish Gold: A Map of the Holes.
Potosi
Stephen Fuller Austin was born on November 3, 1793, at the lead mines in Wythe County, Virginia, to Moses and Maria (Brown) Austin. In 1798 his father moved the family to the lead mines of southeastern Missouri and founded Potosi. Schooled in Connecticut and Kentucky, Stephen managed most of the lead business and sat in the territorial legislature; when the business failed he became a circuit judge in Arkansas.
Seguín
In August 1821 Erasmo Seguín of San Antonio, sent to tell Moses Austin his grant was confirmed, reported from the Guadalupe that 16 Americans were with him under "Dn Estevan Austin," come in his dead father's place. His colonies, begun that December, comprised 8,000 persons by 1832.
Robert S. Weddle and R. Bruce Winders write that Seguín told Austin of silver on this trip, in Weddle's words "a rich silver mine on the San Saba River and a gold mine on the Llano." No primary source for the conversation was found. Later, in Mexico City, Weddle says, Austin heard again of an unworked ore deposit, Los Almagres, "in the territory of Sansava," and sent soldiers to inspect it. "They probably went to the wrong place."
The map
In May 1828 Austin's Philadelphia relative Thomas F. Leaming reported that Tanner had "acceded eagerly" to publish a map of Texas and would bear the expense. On July 23, 1829, Austin sent the government his map, to present Texas to the Mexicans and the world. The Texas State Archives catalog of his 1829 manuscript "Map of Texas" lists silver mines among its subjects.
That year he and his partners also offered shares in registered mines, and in August he made an agreement with John H. Cummins "concerning a silver mine." Nothing in his printed papers ties either to the San Saba, and J. Frank Dobie wrote in 1924 that Austin had "denounced," or registered, a mine, perhaps coal, on the upper Trinity.
Tanner
Tanner's "Map of Texas With Parts of the Adjoining States," entered for copyright on March 17, 1830, was "Compiled by Stephen F. Austin." The Bullock Texas State History Museum calls it "the first of the region to be commercially produced in the United States," and it went through 7 updated editions by 1845. Austin told Senator Thomas H. Benton in 1831 that it was "not of course topografically correct," but as correct as "the first maps of unsurveyed countries generally are, and perhaps more so."
The lost mine
By Weddle's account the San Saba silver mine began appearing on Austin's maps in 1829 and Tanner borrowed the label in 1830; the printed map's wide distribution brought "a rash of maps showing silver mines near the old Spanish fort." Austin, "doubtless realizing the value of the legend in attracting immigrants," repeated it in an 1831 promotional pamphlet that Weddle does not name. Winders infers the same motive; no statement of it by Austin was found.
In 1832 Tanner set terms for Austin's cousin Mary Austin Holley to use the map in her Texas (1833), which printed the tradition "that a silver mine on the San Saba was successfully wrought many years ago, but the prosecution of it was arrested by the Indians, who cut off the workmen." That is legend. Her Texas of 1836 reprinted Rezin P. Bowie's account of the party that left San Antonio on November 2, 1831, "for the silver mines on the San Saba river."
The real prospect was a hill of red ochre near Honey Creek, in present Llano County. A slag heap from Diego Ortiz Parrilla's smelting at the San Saba presidio "fired the imagination of later treasure seekers," and Los Almagres, Weddle writes, was transformed into the "lost San Saba mine," then the "lost Bowie mine." Dobie, who traced the legend to Bernardo de Miranda, credited an 1828 map by Austin's surveyor Elias R. Wightman with showing "the general location of the San Saba Mine"; the Handbook of Texas entry on Wightman mentions no map.
Saltillo
In 1833 he carried a convention's petitions to Mexico City, and in January 1834 he was arrested at Saltillo on the way home. "No charges were made against him," Eugene C. Barker wrote. Back in Texas in August 1835, he commanded the volunteers against San Antonio and, beaten for president in September 1836, became secretary of state.
After
He died on December 27, 1836, at 43, in George B. McKinstry's house near present West Columbia and was buried at Gulf Prairie on Peach Point, his sister's plantation. On October 18, 1910, the State took up his remains for the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, where Pompeo Coppini's bronze stands over the grave. A 1936 marker at San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site calls him "Father of Texas." The silver mine outlived him. For years after 1831, Weddle writes, it was "mentioned in nearly every book about Texas."
Sources: Eugene C. Barker, ed., "The Austin Papers," volume 1 (Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1919) and volume 2 (Annual Report for 1922; Government Printing Office, 1928); Handbook of Texas Online (Texas State Historical Association): Eugene C. Barker, "Austin, Stephen Fuller," Robert S. Weddle, "Los Almagres Mine," "Wightman, Elias R." and "Holley, Mary Austin"; R. Bruce Winders, "Bowie's Silver," The Alamo; Mary Austin Holley, "Texas: Observations, Historical, Geographical and Descriptive" (Armstrong & Plaskitt, Baltimore, 1833) and "Texas" (J. Clarke, Lexington, Kentucky, 1836); J. Frank Dobie, ed., "Legends of Texas" (Texas Folklore Society, 1924); J. Frank Dobie, "Coronado's Children" (Southwest Press, 1930); Texas State Library and Archives Commission, map 01411, "Stephen F. Austin's Map of Texas," and artifact ATF0453; National Archives, Special List 29, "Maps of Texas"; Bullock Texas State History Museum, "Stephen F. Austin's 1830 Map of Texas"; Newberry Library, "Map of Texas with Parts of Adjoining States, 1830"; Texas Historical Commission, markers 248, Stephen F. Austin, 9565, Gulf Prairie Cemetery, 9575, Home of George B. McKinstry, 9581, Peach Point, and 15084, State Cemetery of Texas; Texas State Cemetery, "History."
