The Brazos River, formally named Brazos de Dios, Spanish for Arms of God, is the longest river in Texas. As it wound through Texas, it witnessed the coming of the first Anglo settlers, the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos, and the swearing in of Sam Houston and the republic's first duly elected government in Columbia. In 1821, Austin's first colonists, scheduled to land at the mouth of the Colorado, landed at the mouth of the Brazos instead. The Brazos became the chief artery for transportation and commerce. In November 1835, the steamboat Yellowstone arrived in Brazoria to run cotton along the Brazos. On March 31, 1836, while loading cotton at Groce's Landing above San Felipe, Sam Houston employed the Yellowstone's crew to ferry his retreating army across the flooding Brazos ahead of the Mexican army. The Yellowstone also served ad interim President David G. Burnet on Galveston Island on April 26, 1836, when he pressed it into service to house the cabinet; joined by Mexican General Santa Anna, his staff, and eighty wounded prisoners, it continued to Velasco where treaties were being readied. In December 1836, the Yellowstone carried the body of Secretary of State Stephen F. Austin and his mourners from Columbia to Peach Point Plantation for burial. Its last official act was to carry the Texas government and the printing press and staff of the Telegraph and Texas Register to Houston, the new capital, in the spring of 1837, and its last known voyage was on May 30, 1837.