Stephen F. Austin was born in Virginia to Moses and Maria Austin in 1793. He helped run his father's lead mining business in Missouri, served in the local militia battalion and the Missouri territorial legislature, and later studied law in New Orleans. After Moses Austin gained permission to colonize Texas, his dying wish was for Stephen to continue the work there. Stephen reaffirmed his father's grant from the Mexican government to settle 300 families and chose this area to begin his colony because he considered it the best land in all of Texas. In 1821, the first of Stephen F. Austin's Old 300 stepped off the schooner Lively at the mouth of the Brazos River. In Brazoria County, fifteen years of settlement began that helped change the wilderness into an independent Republic. Citizens of the town of Brazoria forged many of the plans for the Battle of Velasco and the Texas Revolution, the Treaties of Velasco recognizing Texas's independence were signed in what is now Freeport, and West Columbia served as the first capital of Texas. Austin planned to build his retirement home at Peach Point Plantation, the home of his sister Emily Bryan Perry and her husband James F. Perry, but his life was cut short by pneumonia in the winter of 1836. His devotion to the colony earned him the title Father of Texas.