Empresarios such as Stephen F. Austin and Sterling C. Robertson obtained land grants from Mexico to colonize Texas, contracting to bring settlers in return for fees from colonists and large tracts of land, including seven leagues, or 23,023 acres, for every 100 families settled. Sterling C. Robertson, from Nashville, Tennessee, received an empresario contract in 1825 with other Nashville men and, despite repeated trips to Mexico and changing Mexican settlement laws, assembled, financed, and led families to Texas. Between 1827 and 1836, he was credited with bringing 270 families to the Brazos River Valley north of Austin's colony in a grant 100 miles wide and 200 miles long known as the Leftwich, Nashville, or Robertson Colony, land that eventually included part or all of 30 counties, including Bell County. He brought his twelve-year-old son Elijah Sterling Clack Robertson to Texas in 1833. Favoring Texas independence from Mexico, he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836, after the fall of the Alamo joined the Texas Army with Sam Houston, was at Harrisburg during the battle of San Jacinto, later served as a senator in the Republic of Texas, retired in 1838 near Nashville on the Brazos, raised thoroughbred and Arabian horses named for characters in Sir Walter Scott's novels, and died in 1842 at age fifty-seven.