The veterans of the Wiley B. Murray Post No. 27 will meet Friday, February 17th at the legion hall in San Saba for their stated meeting. The building will be opened at 5:30 p.m. for fellowship and refreshments. At 6:30 p.m. a pot luck meal of Mexican Food will be served. Members should bring their favorite Mexican food dish, salad, bread or dessert. Drinks will be provided by the post. Guests and veterans interested in joining the American Legion are invited. After the meal a video program will be shown concerning the lives of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin.

Stephen F. AustinA Quiet LeaderStephen F. Austin has claims to being the greatest colonial proprietary in American history. He embarked with his father upon the colonization of Texas, and it was partly in obedience to his father's dying with that he determined to continue the undertaking alone. He brought the first 300 Anglo colonists to Texas. Each head of the family was given 640 acres, 320 acres for his wife, 160 acres for each child and 80 acres for each slave. He had complete civil and military authority over his colonists until 1828, subject to rather nominal supervision by the officials at San Antonio and Monterrey.Besides bringing the colonists to Texas, Austin strove to produce and maintain conditions conducive to their prosperous development. Harmony with state and federal authorities was indispensable to the success of the colonies. Austin clearly realized this fact and never allowed the settlers to forget the solid benefits that they received through the liberal conlonization policy or their obligation to obey the laws and become loyal Mexican citizens. However, things changed. The Law of April 6, 1830, embodied the Mexican policy of stopping the further colonization of Texas by settlers from the United States.The Texas Convention of 1832 met in October of that year to inform the government of the needs of the Texans. They wanted repeal of the prohibition against immigration from the United States, extension of tariff exemption, separation from Coahulia, and authority to establish state government in Texas. He left San Felipe in April, arrived in Mexico City in July, and, after unavoidable delays, persuaded the government to repeal the Law of April 6, 1830, and to promise important reforms in Texas local government. He started home in December, however, President Santa Anna simply would not approve state government for Texas. Austin was arrested under suspicion of trying to incite insurrection in Texas, and taken back to Mexico City. No charges were made against him, no court would accept jurisdiction of his case, and he remained a prisoner until December 1834.Austin was thus absent from Texas for twenty-eight months. Upon his return, he learned that an unofficial call had been issued for a convention, or consultation, to meet in October. In a notable speech at Brazoria on September 8 he gave it his sanction and election of delegates proceeded. The was for Texas independence had begun its course.War began at Gonzales on October 1. Austin was elected to command the volunteers gathered there and led them against the Mexican army at San Antonio. Enter Sam Houston...

Sam HoustonFirst Commander in Chief of Texas

Sam Houston, one of the most illustrious political figures of Texas, was born on March 2, 1793 in Virginia. When he was thirteen years old, his father died; some months later, in the spring of 1807, he emigrated with his mother, five brothers, and three sisters to Eastern Tennessee, where the family established a farm. Houston went to a nearby academy for a time and reportedly fed his fertile imagination by reading classical literature, especially Iliad.Rebelling at his older brothers' attempts to make him work on the farm and in the family's store in Maryville, Houston ran away from home as an adolescent in 1809 to dwell among the Cherokees, who lived across the Tennessee River. Between intermittent visits to Maryville, he sojourned for three years with the band of Cheif Oolooteka, who adopted him and gave him the Indian name, Colonneh, or "the Raven." Houston viewed Oolooteka as his "Indian Father" and the Cherokees much a surrogate family. He henceforth maintained great sympathy toward Indians.At age eighteen, he left the Cherokees to set up a school, so that he could earn money to repay debts. After war broke out with the British, he joined the United States Army as a twenty-year-old private. As part of Andrew Jackson's army, he fought at the battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River on March 26, 1814. During the engagement he received three near-fatal wounds. One of them, from a rifle ball in his right shoulder, never completely healed. For his valor at Horseshoe Bend, Houston won the attention of General Jackson, who thereafter became his benefactor.Still in poor health, Houston read law in Nashville for six months during 1818 and subsequently opened a law practice in Tennessee. Houston's rapid rise in public office continued in 1823 and 1825 when, as a member of Jackson's political circle, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. In 1827, ever the Jackson protege, Houston was elected governor of Tennessee. He was 34 years of age, extremely ambitious, and in the thick of tumultous Tennessee politics.On January 22, 1829, he married nineteen-year-old Eliza Allen of Gallatin, Tennessee. After eleven weeks and amid much mystery, the marriage ended. Eliza returned to her parents' home. Extremely distraught, Houston abruptly resigned from his office on April 16 and fled west across the Mississippi River to Indian Territory. He made his way to the lodge of Oolooteka in what is now Oklahoma to live once again in self-imposed exile among the Cherokees, this time for three years.Gradually reinvolving himself in the white world, he crossed the Red River into Mexican Texas on December 2, 1832, and began another phase of his career. He quickly became embroiled in the Anglo-Texans' politics of rebellion and on November 12, 1836, Houston was appointed general of the Texas army.After joining his army in Gonzales, Houston and his troops retreated eastward as the Mexican army under General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna swept across Texas. Houston and his men defeated Santa Anna's forces at the decisive battle of San Jacinto on the afternoon of April 21, 1836. During this engagement, his horse was shot beneath him, and Houston was wounded severely just above his ankle. The capture of Santa Anna the next day made the victory complete. At San Jacinto, Sam Houston became forever enshrined as a Texas hero and a symbol for the age.