Brazoria County was created on December
20, 1836
and formed as an Original
County. Brazoria County was named for the Brazos River (along with Brazos County). The County Seat is Angleton. The Official County website is located at http://www.brazoria-county.com. The Brazoria County courthouse was built in 1940 of granite and limestone in Contemporary style. It was designed by Wyatt Hedrick. A 1976 addition to the courthouse helped to meet the growing county’s needs.
PLEASE READ!! Please call the clerk's department to confirm hours, mailing address, fees and other specifics before visiting or requesting information because of sometimes changing contact information.
Brazoria County Clerk has Court Records from 1837, Land Records from 1837, Probate Records from 1837, Marriage Records from 1829 and Birth/Death Records from 1903 is located at 111
E. Locust St., Suite 200,
Angleton, TX 77515-4654;Telephone:
(979) 849-5711 . The County Clerk's Office is the record keeper of the county. The county records include birth certificates, death certificates, marriage licenses, brand registrations, DD214s (military discharges), land / real estate / property records, probate and civil filings. This is to inform you that the Brazoria County Clerk’s real property records office will be relocating from the Courthouse to 1524 E. Mulberry (old Wal-Mart building on E. Hwy 35) in Angleton, Texas around March 1, 2007.
Below is a list of online resources for Brazoria County Court Records. Email us with websites containing Brazoria County Court Records by clicking the link below:
Texas Immigration & Emigration Records - Immigration records help the family historian to understand the movements of their ancestry as they relocated to different parts of the world.
Click Here to Search Texas Birth, Marriage & Death Records! - Birth, marriage, and death records are connected with central life events. They are prime sources for genealogical information. Look also for baptism, christening, and burial records in this collection.
Vital Records,1100 West 49th Street,
Austin, TX 78756, Please allow up to approximately 6-8 weeks for processing of all type of certificates when ordered through the mail. They have the following records:
Birth Certificates: Birth records maintained by Bureau of Vital Statistics, Dept. of Health since 1903 through the present. For births that occurred within the past 75 years, copies can be requested only by the immediate family of the person whose name is on the birth certificate.
Cost: The cost of a birth record is $22.00. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $22.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail.
Processing Time: 6-8 weeks when ordered by MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY
Death Certificates: Death records maintained by Bureau of Vital Statistics, Dept. of Health since 1903 through the present.
For deaths that occurred in the past 25 years, copies can be requested only by immediate family members of the deceased.
Cost: The cost of a certified death certificate is $20.00 for the first copy and $3.00 for each additional copy issued at the same time for the same certificate. If no record is found or no copy is made, state law requires that we keep $20.00 for a searching fee. Please do not send cash in the mail.
Processing Time: 6-8 weeks when ordered by MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY
Marriage & Divorce Certificates: Marriage Verifications from Jan 1966 and Divorce Verifications from Jan 1968. Certified copies of marriage licenses or divorce decrees are only available from the county clerk (marriage) or district clerk (divorce) in the county or district in which the event occurred. Marriage verification or divorce verification letters can now be ordered ELECTRONICALLY
Cost: $20 - Fee is for verification only.
Processing Time: 6-8 weeks when ordered by MAIL or 2-5 Days when you order ELECTRONICALLY
Order Online: You can also order Order Electronically and get the certificates within 2-5 days by ordering below
Order In Person: The certificates may be ordered by coming into this office. If you want the copy the same day, our hours for same day service are 8:00 A.M. until 5:00 P.M. Monday – Friday. The Texas Vital Statistics Office in Austin is located at 1100 W. 49th Street,
Austin, TX 78756.
Order By Mail: Mail a check or money order (no cash) payable to the "Texas Vital Records " along with the necessary information to the following address: Texas Vital Records, Department of State Health Services, PO Box 12040,
Austin TX 78711-2040. Please include return address on envelope and application form.
Search the Social Security Death Index for FREE - Search over 82 million death records and get genealogical information crucial to your family research. New content added weekly! Most comprehensive SSDI site online!
Research Death records In The World's Largest Newspaper Archive at NewpaperArchive.com! - Find thousands of historical Texas newspaper articles about deaths. Search for local articles about an old family friend that died many years ago or a celebrity that committed suicide. Historical newspapers contain a wealth of information about the deceased.
Texas Birth Certificates, 1903-10, 1926-29 - Browse by county, then year, then surname, beginning with the first letters of the last name of the person you seek. If you're unsure of the year or location, use the search box under the browse menu. These records can be searched by father's first and last names, mother's first and maiden names, year, county, and city. The certificates include the child and parents' full names, residence, occupations, age, time and date of the birth, and the name of the physician attending the birth.
Texas Death Certificates, 1890-1976 - These records are searchable by first and last name of the deceased, year, county, and city. A certificate may include the decedent's date, place, and cause of death; age; date of birth; last residence; and marital status. If known, it will also include occupation, birth place, parents' names, and place of burial. Browse by county, then year, then surname, beginning with the first letters of the last name of the person you seek. If unsure of the year or location, use the search box under the browse menu.
Click Here to Search Texas Voter Lists & Census Records! - Few, if any, records reveal as many details about individuals and families as do government census records. Substitute records can be used when the official census is unavailable.
Countywide Records: Federal Population Schedules that exist for Brazoria County, Texas are 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890 (fragment, see below), 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930. The Texas State Library holds microfilm editions for all of Texas' federal censuses. Although the 1850, 1860, and part of the 1870 mortality schedules have been published, all the original mortality schedules are at the Texas State Library and on microfilm The 1830 territorial census of Miller County, Arkansas, enumerates an area that is in today's Texas boundaries. The remaining 1890 population schedules which exist for Texas include: Ellis County (Justice Precinct 6, Mountain Peak, and Ovilla Precinct); Hood County (Precinct 5); Rusk County (No. 6 and Justice Precinct No. 7); Trinity County (town of Trinity and Justice Precinct 2); and Kaufman County (Kaufman). Although Greer County in present-day Oklahoma functioned as part of Texas between 1886 and 1896, the 1890 census for this county was enumerated under Oklahoma Territory.
Other Federal Schedules to look at when researching your family tree in Brazoria County, Texas are Industry and Agriculture Schedules availible for the years 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880. Slave Schedules exist for 1850 & 1860. The Mortality Schedules for the years 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880. There are free downloadable and printable Census forms to help with your research. These include U.S. Census Extraction Forms and U.K. Census Extraction Forms
Below is a list of online resources for Brazoria County Census Records. Email us with websites containing Brazoria County Census Records by clicking the link below:
Genealogy Atlas has images of old American atlases during the years 1795, 1814, 1822, 1823, 1836, 1838, 1845, 1856, 1866, 1879 and 1897 for Arkansas and other states.
You can view rotating animated maps for Texas showing all the county boundaries for each census year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries. You can view a list of maps for other states at Census Maps
You can view rotating animated maps for Texas showing all the county boundary changes for each year overlayed with past and present maps so you can see the changes in county boundaries. You can view a list of maps for other states and State Department of Transportation Maps at County Maps.
Below is a list of online resources for Brazoria County Maps. Email us with websites containing Brazoria County Maps by clicking the link below:
Click Here to Search Texas Military Records! - Military and civil service records provide unique facts and insights into the lives of men and women who have served their country at home and abroad.
The uses and value of military records in genealogical research for ancestors who were veterans are obvious, but military records can also be important to re-searchers whose direct ancestors were not soldiers in any war. The fathers, grandfathers, brothers, and other close relatives of an ancestor may have served in a war, and their service or pension records could contain information that will assist in further identifying the family of primary interest. Due to the amount of genealogical information contained in some military pension files, they should never be overlooked during the research process. Those records not containing specific genealogical information are of historic value and should be included in any overall research design.
Below is a list of online resources for Brazoria County Military Records. Email us with websites containing Brazoria County Military Records by clicking the link below:
Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783 (The National Archives): View, Print Copy & Save Original Documents in NARA publication M246 include muster rolls, payrolls, strength returns, and other miscellaneous personnel, pay, and supply records of American Army units, 1775-83.
Southern Claims Commission from the State of Texas (The National Archives): View, Print Copy & Save Original Documents In the 1870s, southerners claimed compensation from the U.S. government for items used by the Union Army, ranging from corn and horses, to trees and church buildings.
Texas tax records constitute one of the most complete sets of available records generated at the county level (by the Commissioners Court) because these documents are maintained by the state. These lists may only include approximately sixty percent of eligible males over the age of twenty-one. Persons exempted from taxes included native Americans, "idiots," "incompetents," and those exempted because of age. This final category of exemptions varied over time. Years without an older age exemption were 1840 and 1862-70. Between 1841-44 exemptions began at forty-five years; in 1845 and from 1850-61 the upward age was set at fifty years. In 1837, 1848, and 1849 the limit was established as fifty-five, and in 1846-7, and 1871 the upward limit was set at sixty years.
Texas Ad Valorem (poll, personal, and real property) tax records for 1836 through 1976 are available in microfilm at the Texas State Library from the date of respective county organization; these are arranged by county and date and are somewhat alphabetized within each division. Microfilm copies are housed in the Genealogy Section. Tax lists for the various counties from creation to 1901 may be borrowed through interlibrary loan. Tax records through 1901-1947 are readily accessible, but not on interlibrary loan. Those for 1948 through 1976 can be obtained upon request.
Below is a list of online resources for Brazoria County Tax Records. Email us with websites containing Brazoria County Tax Records by clicking the link below:
The Repositories
in this section are Archives, Libraries, Museums, Genealogical
and Historical Societies. Many County Historical and Genealogical
Societies publish magazines and/or news letters on a monthly,
quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis. Contacting the local societies
should not be over looked. State Archives and Societies are
usually much larger and better organized with much larger archived
materials than their smaller county cousins but they can be
more generalized and over look the smaller details that local
societies tend to have. Libraries can also be a good place to
look for local information. Some libraries have a genealogy
section and may have some resources that are not located at
archives or societies. Also, take a special look at any museums
in the area. They sometimes have photos and items from years
gone by as well as information of a genealogical interest. All
these places are vitally important to the family genealogist
and must not be passed over.
Below is a list of online resources for Brazoria County Genealogical Addresses. Email us with websites containing Brazoria County Genealogical Addresses by clicking the link below:
Texas State Library and Archives Commission, P.O. Box 12927, Austin, TX 78711-2927 Holdings under the auspices of the Texas State Library are divided. Most important for genealogical research are the Texas State Archives with its Local Records Department, the Records Management Division, and the Information Services Division, which includes a Genealogy Section and a Reference Department.
The Genealogy Section maintains vertical ties that contain notes, clippings, pamphlets, and correspondence on Texas families. These files may be accessed in person, by phone (512-463-5463, forty-five minute limit), or through correspondence.
Texas Historical Commision The Texas Historical Commission (THC) is the state agency for historic preservation. THC staff consults with citizens and organizations to preserve Texas' architectural, archeological and cultural landmarks. The agency is recognized nationally for its preservation programs.
Texas Newspapers & Periodicals Records - Newspapers and periodicals are the diaries of local communities. They are excellent sources of family history details - often recorded nowhere else. Look for obituaries, marriages, legal notices, and more found in our Historical Newspaper Archives.
Click Here to Search Texas Obituary Records! - This database is a compilation of obituaries published in U.S. newspapers, collected from various online sources. Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as names, dates, places of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships.
During Texas's colonization period Roman Catholics were the most numerous, but early citizens included those representing other religious faiths such as Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Christian or Disciples of Christ.
Many cemetery records have been collected and transcribed, including the largest of which is multi-volumes compilation by the DAR and two volumes for Peters Colonists and descendants. The DAR collection, also microfilmed, is available at the Texas State Library and through the FHL.
Some Texas county historical and genealogical societies have published local cemetery and/funeral home records. These are normally available for purchase through the respective society. Two references can help determine which cemeteries have been recorded: Kim Parsons', A Reference to Texas Cemetery Records (Humble, Tex.: by author, 1988), arranged by county; and Sharry Crofford-Gould's, Texas Cemetery Inscriptions: A Source Index (San Antonio, Tex.: Limited Editions, 1977).
Below is a list of online resources for Brazoria County Cemetery & Church Records. Email us with websites containing Brazoria County Cemetery & Church Records by clicking the link below:
Find Obituaries in The World's Largest Newspaper Archive at NewpaperArchive.com! - Find thousands of Texas obituaries to help you research your family history. Search for a Texas newspaper obituary about your ancestor or a celebrity. Begin your search today and find death notices and funeral announcements printed in newspapers from Texas.
Click Here to Search Texas Family Tree Records! - The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.
When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Brazoria County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Brazoria County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:
Genealogy Encyclopedia: General Abbreviations, Early Illnesses, Nickname Meanings, Worldwide Epidemics, Early Occupations, Common Terms, Censuses Explained, Free Genealogical Forms
Nichols and Related Families of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virgina.
Before Anglo-American colonization, the region was occupied by Karankawa Indians. Archeological excavations have revealed some of the shell middens and campsite refuse of this nomadic people, who exploited maritime and mainland resources on a seasonal basis as early as a.d. 450. Skirmishes with colonists, including the battle of Jones Creek in 1824, resulted in expulsion of most of the Indian population to the area south of the Rio Grande by 1850.
In 1528 Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca landed on the Isle of Mal Hado (Island of Evil Destiny), possibly San Luis Island. Scholars agree that his party probably crossed Oyster Creek, Old Caney Creek, and the Brazos and San Bernard rivers, roaming the area that became Brazoria County looking for provisions. Spanish soldiers under Alonso De León, governor of Coahuila, passed through the region in search of the La Salle expedition in 1689, and Joaquín de Orobio y Basterra came in 1727 searching for possible French intruders in the Trinity River area. In an effort to forestall French or English incursions, the Spanish began to occupy Texas in the eighteenth century, but entered the future Brazoria County chiefly to trade with Indians or search for stolen horses. Though expeditions on the Trinity probably traveled through for missionary purposes in the 1750s, the area was not settled by the Spanish. Similarly, early American military expeditions did not reach the future county, though a popular tradition suggests that pirate Jean Laffite used the mouth of the Brazos as a rendezvous and buried treasure along its banks.
Though the alluvial bottomlands of the county's rivers attracted settlement by Americans as early as 1820, the passengers of the schooner Lively who landed at the mouth of the Brazos in December 1821 passed on to Richmond. The area was first populated when Stephen F. Austin selected it for his proposed settlement, and eighty-nine of Austin's Old Three Hundred had grants in what is now Brazoria County by 1824. The earliest communities were Velasco (at the site of present Surfside), East Columbia (originally known as Bell's Landing or Marion), Columbia (later West Columbia), and Brazoria. Quintana and Liverpool were also settled before 1832. In 1835 Mary Austin Holley observed, "The rage is now for making towns," but many new towns, including George L. Hammeken's thriving community on San Luis Island, failed to survive.
Brazoria County became part of the Victoria district when Austin's original San Felipe district was divided in two in 1826. In 1832 the legislature of Coahuila separated Brazoria Municipality from San Felipe and made Brazoria its capital. Brazoria Municipality was the scene of the battle of Velasco on June 26, 1832, and witnessed other agitation against Mexican rule. In 1833 county residents suffered both flood and cholera, but in 1834 population in the municipality reached 2,100, and prosperity returned. A decision was made to change the name of the municipality from Brazoria to Columbia, to make Columbia the seat of government, and transfer some territory to Matagorda Municipality. At the time, the largest settlements in the future county were Brazoria, with 500 residents, Velasco with 100, and Bolivar with fifty. As early as the mid-1830s, cotton farms produced more than 5,000 bales annually, and plantation owners in the area became some of the wealthiest in Texas. On March 1, 1835, a meeting near Brazoria led to the establishment of the first Masonic lodge in Texas, Holland Lodge No. 36 (see FREEMASONRY).
When Stephen F. Austin declared against Santa Anna at another meeting in Brazoria on September 8, 1835, Texans began to prepare for a revolution. Agitation for independence led to the formation of committees of public safety and public meetings to discuss the impending break. After the convention at San Felipe and engagements at Gonzales, Goliad, and Bexar, volunteer companies were organized and a provisional government approved on November 13, 1835. Henry Smith of Brazoria County served as the first provisional governor. Formation of a permanent council soon thereafter brought the inauguration of mail routes throughout the area. Rebellion grew in 1835 and 1836, culminating in the Texas Declaration of Independence.
Citizens of the county contributed men and means to the Texas Revolution and participated in the Runaway Scrape. After his capture at the battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, Santa Anna and members of his army were taken to Velasco, then the location of the provisional government. Here Santa Anna signed the Treaties of Velasco with the Republic of Texas on May 14, 1836. Columbia, the seat of the ad interim government, served as the capital of the republic when sessions of the first Texas Congress met in October 1836. During the first session Stephen F. Austin died and was buried at Peach Point. Houston became the capital.
Under the provisional government, Texas accepted the constitution that made its first counties from former municipalities. Brazoria County, among the first, took its name from the Brazos River when the Congress of the republic established it on March 24, 1836. Brazoria, which became county seat when the county was organized on December 20, 1836, served until 1896, when Angleton replaced it. The establishment of Fort Bend County in 1837 and of Galveston County in 1838 drew the present county boundaries, and the towns of Columbia, Velasco, and Brazoria were incorporated by the Congress of the republic in 1837.
According to some sources, the last shipment of African Americans brought as slaves into North America arrived at the mouth of the San Bernard River in 1840. At the time, the community of Brazoria had an estimated population of 800 and Columbia of 300; 80 slaveholders in the county owned a total of 1,316 slaves. Yellow fever and flooding in 1843 and 1844 slowed growth, but the annexation of Texas to the United States in 1845 and the Mexican War had little effect on residents of Brazoria County, mostly farmers. By 1847 Brazoria County had 1,623 white inhabitants and 3,013 slaves. In 1852 the county produced 7,329 hogsheads of sugar, the most of all Texas counties.
During pioneer days, the Brazos River was the chief artery by which immigration, communication, and commerce penetrated Texas from the Gulf. Small boats regularly navigated as far as East Columbia, and customhouses were located at Brazoria and Velasco. By 1840, Buffalo Bayou and the growing town of Houston had begun to draw commerce away from the Brazos, but freight and passenger service between Brazoria, other Brazos River ports, and Galveston was established by 1842, and a canal from the Brazos mouth to West Galveston Bay was completed by 1857 (see GALVESTON AND BRAZOS NAVIGATION COMPANY).
Between 1849 and 1859 plantation life in Brazoria County flourished, and the county became the wealthiest in Texas, with a typically Southern society based on slavery. Agriculture was the foundation of the county's early economy, and some of the state's largest and most prosperous sugar and cotton plantations grew up along the rivers and deeper creeks on which crops could be shipped by barges. Plantations in the county between 1850 and 1860 numbered forty-six, including nineteen sugar, sixteen cotton, and three that produced both sugar and cotton. Before the war, these plantations produced an average of 7,000 to 8,000 hogsheads of sugar annually, and up to three-fourths of the state's output in 1857. Many planters raised cattle, and some cultivated oranges, lemons, and other fruits. Each of twenty-six county residents owned more than $100,000 in property by the year 1860; the foremost planter was John H. Herndon, whose real property was valued at more than $1.6 million and personal property at more than $106,000. In that year Brazoria County had 2,027 white, 5,110 black slave, and six free black residents; by 1864, when slaves numbered 5,125, their value was only slightly less than the county's 283,151 acres of land. Town life was subordinated to plantation life, and Old Velasco and Quintana served as Gulf seaports and resort centers for antebellum plantation society. Later, the two towns declined in importance as plans for an intracoastal canal to divert trade developed, and in 1875 and 1900 both were almost destroyed by hurricanes. Other transportation in the period was provided by the Houston Tap and Brazoria Railroad, chartered in 1856 and built by planters to connect East Columbia with Houston markets and with the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railroad at Pierce Junction. After the Civil War, this railroad became the property of the International-Great Northern.
Residents of Brazoria County cast more than 99 percent of their votes for secession, 527 for and two against. During the Civil War, the Dance Brothers gun works manufactured weapons, companies were organized for the Confederate Army, and women were left to run the plantations. Fortifications built at Velasco and Quintana weathered Union attacks in 1862. Confederate blockade runners operated along the coast, and some cotton was shipped overland by mule and wagon to Mexico. Though the county suffered little physical damage in the war, the presence of federal troops and loss of profit from cotton crops in 1864 brought increasing hardship. Some plantations were destroyed, and agricultural production declined sharply with the freeing of the slaves. David G. Mills alone lost 313 slaves as a result of emancipation. County land was valued at more than $3 million in 1860, but its value had declined to less than $2 million by 1866. During the same period, total property value in the county fell from almost $7 million to less than $3 million. Many plantations were divided into smaller farms or turned into pastures; others eventually became part of the Ramsey, Retrieve, Clemens, and Darrington state prison farms (see PRISON SYSTEM). In 1870 only a single Brazoria County resident, farmer William Bryan, had a prewar level of wealth, with real property valued at $100,000 and personal property worth $20,000. As conditions worsened, some Brazoria countians moved to Mexico, where they organized settlements in the Tuxpan River valley in Vera Cruz.
Brazoria County had been primarily Democratic in politics from annexation to the Civil War, but voted Republican throughout Reconstruction because the majority of voters were newly franchised freedmen. The county supported Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, James G. Blaine, Benjamin Harrison, and William McKinley in the national elections from 1876 to 1900. During Reconstruction, federal troops were stationed at Brazoria and Sandy Point. A Freedmen's Bureau agent arrived in the county in 1865, the Union League organized and registered black voters by the mid-1870s, and voters elected black legislator George T. Ruby as early as 1870 and Nathan H. Haller as late as 1894. Such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan, San Bernard Rifles, and Prairie Rangers attempted to maintain the supremacy of whites in the county in opposition to Reconstruction measures, though some former slaves succeeded in attaining positions of wealth and leadership. The White Man's Union ultimately disfranchised black voters, however, and removed local politics from the hands of carpetbaggers and freedmen. From 1895 until the 1950s, the Taxpayers Union worked to assure "the fact that this is a white man's country and that white supremacy must obtain," and held primaries in which only whites could vote (see WHITE PRIMARY). Leaders posted notices that African Americans elected to office could not serve, and in the 1890s placed guards around the courthouse to enforce their edict. In presidential elelctions from 1900 to 1952 the county's voters generally favored Democratic candidates, though they did support Republicans Theodore Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding, and Herbert Hoover. After 1956, when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, carried the county, the area began to trend more Republican, though Democrats did take the area in 1964 and 1968. After 1972, when Republican Richard M. Nixon won most of the county's votes, the county voted Republican in virtually every presidential election through 2004. The only exception was 1976, when Democrat Jimmy Carter carried the county. Third-party candidates usually received little assistance from Brazoria County, though in 1944, 1948, 1980, and 1992 they won a significant percentage of the vote. In 1990 half the county's residents were registered voters.
Between 1870 and 1880 the population in Brazoria County grew from 7,527 to 9,774, largely due to the arrival of federal soldiers and other Northerners, foreign immigrants, and Confederate soldiers from Texas and the Old South. S. A. Hackworth, a white Republican, bought land in Wharton, Fort Bend, and Brazoria counties and sold it to blacks in the 1870s and 1880s. By the 1890s Columbia was the largest town in the county, followed by Brazoria, Velasco, Quintana, Sandy Point, and Liverpool, and new towns had been founded—Alvin, Angleton, and Pearland. In 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War, Adm. George Dewey acquired 65,000 acres of land in Brazoria County.
Economic recovery came slowly in the post-Civil War era. The principal crops were corn, grains, sweet and Irish potatoes, fruits, wild grapes, and cotton and sugar for export. Sugar production, reduced in the early years of Reconstruction, burgeoned with the use of convict labor by 1871, but never again reached earlier levels. By 1867 the value of livestock, chiefly cattle, nearly equalled that of agriculture. When cattlemen found northern markets shut off in the late 1860s, hide and tallow factories were established along the Brazos River; Brazoria County packed $100,000 worth of canned beef in 1870. Figs were introduced in the Alvin area around the turn of the century and became an important crop. Four canneries were later built in the community. Live oak moss was ginned at Angleton.
Texas Birth Certificates, 1903-10, 1926-29