Austin Musick was born in Shelby county, Alabama, April 15, 1826, son of James and Harriet (Seale) Musick, the former a native of North Carolina and the latter of South Carolina. Early in life his parents settled in Alabama, where they passed their lives on a farm. Austin therefore was reared to farm pursuits, and he received his education in the common schools. His mother died when he was 16. At the age of 19 he left home and started out in the world on his own responsibility. He rented a piece of land on the shares in Alabama and made one crop there, and then in the following December went to Louisiana, where for four years he worked for wages and cultivated rented land. While there he married, and afterward he settled on a farm in Union parish and followed farming there and in Moorehouse parish until his coming to Texas, which was in June, 1857, his first settlement here being in Jasper county. That year he rented a farm and the next year he purchased a tract of unimproved land. This he partially improved and sold, then bought and improved another tract, and was living on the latter place at the opening of the civil war. During the war he sold out and purchased a smaller place, to which he moved his family, and soon after he entered the Confederate army, going out as a member of Company G, Thirteenth (dismounted) Cavalry. His service was chiefly in southern Louisiana. He was in the engagements at Ashton, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill and Jenkins Ferry, the last named in Arkansas, and from there he returned to Louisiana and thence to Texas, remaining in the service until the war closed.

Mr. Musick continued to reside in Jasper county until September, 1867, when he removed to Hill county and purchased a tract of wild land, to the improvement and cultivation of which he devoted his energies and where he resided until his removal to Hood county in the fall of 1882. The first year of his residence in Hood county he lived on rented land near Lipan. Then he bought 300 acres of timber land, wholly unimproved, and at once set about the work of clearing away the forest and making a home. On this place he has since resided. Now he has 50 acres under cultivation, and in his farming and stock-raising is meeting with that success which his earnest efforts merit.

Mr. Musick was married November 29, 1850 to Miss Jane Merrell, a native of Lincoln county, Tennessee, and a daughter of Benjamin Merrell, who settled in Louisiana when Mrs. Musick was a girl of 12 years. They have had six children, four of whom are still living:

Politically, Mr. Musick affiliates with the People's party. He is a man of broad views and keeps himself well posted on the issues of the day, and especially is he well informed on all matters pertaining to the interest of the farmer. For years he has maintained a membership in the Farmers' Alliance. Mrs. Musick is a member of the Missionary Baptist church.