Mary Phelps Austin Holley

Mary Phelps Austin Holley made several trips to Texas between 1831 and 1843, writing a book about her early travels in 1833. According to Auguste Edouart, the volume, entitled Texas: Observations Historical, Geographical, and Descriptive, was “the first work” on the subject and the one upon which “all the rest were founded.” Another commentator described the book as a work of “great purity and elegance of style.”
Holley visited Austin, then a colony, which had been founded by her cousin Steven Austin, and she went on to join the campaign for the annexation of Texas and invest in land there.