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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.
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