James Franklin Perry was the second husband of Stephen F. Austin's sister Emily. Born in 1790, he emigrated from Pennsylvania to Missouri where he married Emily Austin Bryan in 1824. In 1830 the couple were granted eleven leagues of land in Texas. Perry and his family set up a store in San Felipe, then moved to Peach Point Plantation, near a settlement on the Brazos River that later became known as Perry's Landing. He managed some of Stephen Austin’s business affairs while Austin was in Mexico, and became more politically active during the Texas Revolution, serving at various conventions and on the Committee of Safety. He served as the administrator of Austin's estate, and in 1839 declined to become secretary of the treasury of the Republic of Texas. He owned about twenty slaves, and was one of the first Texas planters to shift from cotton to sugar as a primary product. After Emily’s death in 1851, Perry and his daughter traveled to Biloxi, Mississippi to meet his son Henry. Both James and Henry Perry contracted yellow fever there; Perry died on September 13, 1853 and was buried in Biloxi. His oldest son Stephen Samuel Perry (1825-1874) continued to manage Peach Point Plantation, which declined after the Civil War until the discovery of petroleum on the property brought a brief return of prosperity in the early twentieth century.
From the guide to the James F. and Stephen S. Perry papers, 1785-1942, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
