THE SETTLEMENT OF THE JEWS IN TEXAS (From 1820 to 1890)
By Henry Cohen, Galveston
The first Jewish settler in Texas of whom any record is preserved was Samuel Isaacs, who came from the United States in 1821, with Austin’s first colony of three hundred. As a colonist he received “a Spanish grant of one league, and one labor of land,” situated in Fort Bend county. A bounty warrant for 320 acres, located in Polk county, was issued to him in 1853 for services in the army of Texas in 1836- 37. Nothing further is known of him, the land having been patented to strangers.
Velasco, on the Gulf of Mexico, south of Galveston, claims the first permanent settlement of Jews in Texas. Abraham C. Labatt visited Texas in 1831. His business took him to Velasco, and he there found two Israelites, Jacob Henry and Jacob Lyons—the former from England and the latter from Charleston—engaged in mercantile pursuits. They had been there for some years. When Jacob Henry died,
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