John C. Alley

ALLEY, JOHN C. (?-ca. 1822). John C. Alley, one of the Old Three Hundred,qv was the son of Catherine (Baker) and Thomas Alley. He immigrated to Texas from Missouri in the spring of 1822 with his brothers Abraham and Thomas V. Alley.qqv A fourth brother, Rawson Alley,qv had moved to the Austin colony the year before, and a fifth, William A. Alley, Jr.,qv joined them in the winter of 1824. The three brothers sailed from New Orleans on the schooner James Lawrence and landed on the west end of Galveston Island. They proceeded on foot up the Brazos River to the Fort Bend settlement and from there to the Atascosito Crossingqv of the Colorado, where they settled on the east side of the river. During the fall of 1822 or the winter of 1822-23, while canoeing up the Colorado, Alley, John C. Clark,qv and another man were attacked by a band of Karankawa Indians near the mouth of Skull Creek, and Alley and the third man were killed. The party of Indians also attacked and severely wounded Robert Brotherton.qv A group of Austin colonists tracked and defeated the Indian party near the scene of Alley's death. On May 16, 1827, Alley's estate was awarded a sitioqv of land now in Fayette County.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Lester G. Bugbee, "The Old Three Hundred: A List of Settlers in Austin's First Colony," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 1 (October 1897). J. H. Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 6-7 (January, April, July 1903).

Thomas W. Cutrer

From the Handbook of Texas Online