San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Texas Centennial statue gets a makeover
Moses Austin got a glow-up recently when conservators cleaned his 9-foot bronze statue from the top down, restoring an even tone to its surface and giving it a protective coating.
“The desired effect is a rich leather brown,” said Simon Seleh of Wanderlust Ironworks, who worked on the project last month with his wife, Autumn Selah. Exposure to weather can leave streaks and spots on a bronze surface, so the pair used an acidic cleaner and a thin wax coating to restore a consistent patina and to defend Austin’s monument against future wear.
Simon Seleh estimated it had been at least 20 years since the statue had been cleaned — about right for a bronze of its composition and age.
“We along with other City departments monitor artworks and do a fiveyear maintenance plan where we analyze artworks to determine their maintenance needs,” said Stacey Norton, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Arts and Culture. “Based on that list, we plan an annual maintenance plan based on need and funding availability.”
They also follow up on tips from the 311 service request number, “as it’s helpful to have eyes on all 600-plus pieces of artwork” in the city’s inventory.
Austin’s monument, dedicated May 15, 1939,
was a Texas Centennial project; like many, it wasn’t completed until after the 1936 observance of Texas independence from Mexico.
In its location behind City Hall, the statue — reaching 15 feet with its bronze base and granite pedestal — overlooks the Spanish Governor’s Palace, where the real Moses Austin applied for a land grant and permission to start the first colony of American settlers in Spanish Texas.
Turned down at first by the provincial governor, Austin chanced to meet the faux-noble Baron de Bastrop, then a town official, who interceded successfully on his behalf.
Austin was a Connecticut native who also had
lived in Virginia and Missouri. He started out as a merchant; but when he moved to Missouri, he became a miner, joining the lead-mining industry there. After business reversals following a St. Louis bank failure, Austin first went back to selling goods, then turned toward Texas for his next move.
On his way back from San Antonio, however, he had a terrible trip, surviving for a time on roots and berries and contracting pneumonia. He died June 10, 1821 — but not before passing on his dream.
A letter from his widow, Mary, also called Maria, exhorts her son Stephen to carry on his father’s Texas venture.
“He begged me to tell you to take his place: ‘Tell dear Stephen that it is his dying father’s last request to prosecute the enterprise he had commenced.’”
Stephen F. Austin agreed to take over as colony empresario or recruiter/manager, and after a few years of political changes and negotiations, brought the first
300 Anglo-American families to Texas. He went on to develop four more colonies.
So Moses Austin was the father of “the Father of Texas,” as Stephen F. Austin has been called (overlooking the Indigenous, Spanish and Mexican people who preceded his colonists). Among many other Texas historical figures proposed for
Centennial statues, Austin the elder was one of the few who made the cut for San Antonio’s share of the memorial funds.
Waldine Tauch was one of four Texas artists invited to submit plans for the Alamo Cenotaph, “a statue of Moses Austin for the City Hall lawn and a statue of Ben Milam for Milam Square,” according to the San Antonio Light, Oct. 2, 1936.
Pompeo Coppini got the commission for the Cenotaph or “empty tomb” for the Alamo defenders; Bonnie McLeary was assigned the statue of Texian soldier Milam, who fell during the Battle of Bexar; and Tauch got Austin.
That suited Tauch. “Heroes to me are the men who come with peace, not war,” she said at the Austin statue’s dedication, as reported in the Light, May 16, 1939.
Once hoisted onto its pedestal, her creation was shrouded until its unveiling at the ceremony with 15 Austin descendants on hand. The realistic statue holds a scroll of papers representing his colony application. The figure is set on an octagonal base where panels of biographical text alternate with bas-reliefs depicting the meeting between Austin and Baron de Bastrop, the spirit of Moses Austin guiding his son, a pioneer family and a farmer surrounded by crops.
Less than a month after its dedication, the statue was “losing the shiny gold color (that) identified it as being brand-new,” said the Light, June 11, 1939. It was developing a patina, indicating “a healthy aging of the nickel and copper alloy.”
While Milam is buried in Milam Park, Austin is buried in Missouri — first in his daughter Emily’s in-laws’ burial ground, then moved to a cemetery in Potosi, Mo.
At the request of Texas state historian, Louis Kemp, Thurlow Weed of Austin was sent to Potosi in April 1938 to bring the would-be colonist’s remains back for reinterment in the Texas State Cemetery, as recounted in “The Battle for Moses Austin” on the cemetery’s website.
Weed, who was a mortician, had the approval of Austin descendants — but Potosi town officials sent Weed packing.
Texas officials said the Austin monument in Missouri was in poor condition. Potosi Mayor W.L. Edmonds countered that it had been “in excellent condition until their (Weed’s) workmen tore out the side,” as quoted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 20. Texas offered $1,000 to build an Austin memorial in exchange for his remains, but Potosi refused.
In 1949, the Potosi
Lions Club proposed selling Austin’s remains to Texas for $50,000 for a new town hall to be named “Austin Hall.” This time, it was Texas’ turn to say no, and the father of the “Father of Texas” still rests in southeastern Missouri.
Potosi is the site of an annual Moses Austin Heritage Festival; this year’s will be held June 16-17.