DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, you want to talk about getting in on the ground floor of something big — I mean the ground floor before there even was a floor — let me tell you about Josiah Hughes Bell. Born in 1791, died in 1838, and in between those two years he managed to plant himself right at the very beginning of Texas as we know it.
Bell was one of the Old Three Hundred. That's the name history gave to the first colonists who came to Texas with Stephen F. Austin back in 1821.
Not the second wave, not the folks who showed up once word got out that the land was fine and the skies were wide. The Old Three Hundred. The ones who came first, when coming first meant something.
And among that distinguished company, Josiah Hughes Bell didn't exactly fade into the crowd. He became the first alcalde of Austin's colony. That's the top civic post, the man the community looked to when decisions had to be made, and Bell was the first man to hold it.
Now here's where the land itself gets into the story. In 1824, Bell was granted a tract out here in what is now Brazoria County — six thousand, six hundred and forty-two acres. You sit with that number a moment.
Six thousand, six hundred and forty-two acres. On that very tract, the town of Columbia was eventually built. And Columbia wasn't just any town.
Columbia became the first capital of the Republic of Texas. The Republic. Not a territory, not a colony anymore — a republic.
And it all grew up right here, on land that had once simply been home to one of the Old Three Hundred. Josiah Hughes Bell didn't live to see everything that would grow from the ground he stood on — he was gone by 1838. But the marker stands on this spot to remind you: some men arrive early, and the world catches up to them later.
What the marker says
(1791-1838) One of the "Old Three Hundred" who came to Texas with Stephen F. Austin in 1821. First alcalde of Austin's colony. On this tract of 6,642 acres, granted him in 1824, was later built the town of Columbia, first capital of the Republic.