ABSTRACT
In early 1822, Jared Ellison Groce rumbled into the Austin colony at the head of fifty covered wagons containing his family, household goods, and agricultural equipment. Behind the wagons some of his ninety slaves drove herds of horses, mules, oxen, cattle, sheep, and hogs. Groce immediately became and long remained the colony’s richest citizen. He received the largest land grant in the colony, eventually totaling 11 leagues or 44,000 acres of prime Brazos River bottom land. With ready money and an experienced labor force, he soon had the best of his land in cotton and his famed Bernardo Plantation rose on a bluff overlooking the river.
