Her recovery was made by Capt. Lawrence Sullivan Ross, commanding a company of Texas Rangers, later a general in the Confederate army, and still later governor of Texas. The counties of Refugio and San Patricio had been almost depopulated by the ravages of Mexicans and Indians. In consequence, the scattered exiles from these localities wherever they might have been, were allowed to vote for representatives and senators to represent their county in the first congress of the Texan republic. This congress met on the third of October, 1836. Sam Houston had been chosen president, receiving 5,119 votes of a total of 6,640. The two Irish colonies were represented in congress as follows: Refugio, Elkanah Brush; San Patricio, John Geraghty. The colony of Victoria had quite a sprinkling of Irish settlers, among them the family of the McLinns. It was represented by Richard Roman. It is not at all unlikely that this may originally have been the name Ronan, a common Irish name. Sabine sent John Boyd. Collin McKinney represented Red River, and Jesse Grimes, Washington. Among the judges appointed by this congress were W. H. McIntire, Massillion Farley, Patrick Usher, Bartlett McClure, Geo. B. McKinstry, John Dunn, John Turner (the two latter were for Refugio and San Patricio), William McFarland and John McHenry. Stephen F. Austin died in December, 1836. “Among the touching episodes connected with the death of General Austin was the presence with him in the hour of death of perhaps his oldest friend, Major James Kerr, of Lavaca, who had served with him in the territorial legislature of Missouri, twenty years before, and who had ever been his warm and confidential friend in Texas.” What this friendship meant to Austin none but the readers of Texan history, or those who took part in the stirring events of the period, can determine. Among the commanders in the new Texan navy was Capt. J. D. Boyland, and among the members of the second congress were Patrick J. Jack, James Power, John Boyd, John J. Linn, Collin McKinney, Thomas H. Brennan and John Dunn. In the third congress were Holland Coffee, James Kerr, Richard Roman, Benjamin Odlum, John J. Linn and Anthony Butler, the latter afterwards United States minister to Mexico. Austin, the capital of Texas, was laid out and building begun in 1839. Before November of that year, it was said to contain fifteen hundred souls, and this was written of it: “Certainly in no settlement where defence against savages depended upon the members of every household, was there ever more enlightenment and refinement.”