The coordinates listed will take you to Munson Cemetery, but that isn't where Brit Bailey was laid to rest. A Texas Historical Marker about Bailey is outside this historic cemetery.
"Brit" Bailey Plantation - Established in 1818 as an individual claim by James Briton Bailey, a member later of Austin's colony. Born 1779, Bailey was tall, fearless, of Irish stock. At his request, he was buried (1833) standing up, facing west, gun at side. His restless ghost is said to walk this prairie. (1968)
From KHOU - A Ghost Story: The Legend The legend of Bailey's Light lives on in Brazoria County
THE LEGEND OF JAMES BRITON "BRIT" BAILEY, AN EARLY TEXAS PIONEER, STILL HAUNTS BAILEY'S PRAIRIE NEARLY 200 YEARS LATER
By Kevin Reece
It’s a ghost story that begins a few years before Texas was even officially the Republic of Texas. But after nearly 200 years the tall tale—or eyewitness truth, depending who you ask—is alive and well on Bailey’s Prairie in Brazoria County.
He was a notorious and eccentric early Texas pioneer named James Briton “Brit” Bailey who arrived in what is now Brazoria County several years before Stephen F. Austin established his Old 300 colony in the same area.
“He was a heavy drinker and loved to fight,” said Brazoria County Historical Museum Research Librarian Jamie Murray, who says Austin reluctantly accepted Bailey into the colony although he reportedly did not approve of Bailey’s love for whiskey and a good fist fight.
The rest of Bailey’s story, including the story of his ghost, can be found in several large files at the museum in Angleton. In a handwritten copy of his will, and on a roadside historical marker along Highway 35, are the words that helped start the legend.
“And the will does say he wants to be buried standing up and facing west,” Murray said.
And as the story goes, in 1832 his descendants did follow his wishes, lowering a casket vertically into the ground so that he could continue, in death, to face the vast western expanse of the country he longed to continue exploring.
"And he said he didn't want anybody to stand over his grave and say ‘there lies old Britt Bailey,’” Murray added.
We visited the Brazoria Heritage Foundation in the town of Brazoria for a few more details on Bailey and his ghost, because in the hallway of a 1930s school house now operating as a museum, they keep a mannequin under lock and key dressed like Brit Bailey. He’s wearing a pioneer’s leather jacket, and, as the legend goes, appears with the items with which he was buried: a rifle at his side, a lantern to light his way to the west, and a jug of whiskey at his feet. Well, almost with the jug of whiskey.
"His wife said he'd had enough of that during his lifetime,” said Dortha Pekar, 70, with the Brazoria Heritage Foundation, referring to Bailey’s reported love of a stiff drink. “And she threw it out on the prairie and said he'd already had enough of that. And apparently he had.”
"And because his wife said he had enough whiskey in his lifetime he did not need to take it with him,” Murray said. "But the basic story remains the same. He was a character."
A character who, according to Brazoria County legend and numerous reported sightings over the following 184 years, haunts Bailey’s Prairie. As the story goes, on any given night—but best seen in the fall of the year when the “mist is on the prairie”—a floating light can be seen hovering over the prairie that bears his name.
Catherine Munson Foster, the late Brazoria County historian, librarian and storyteller whose family lived on the property where Bailey was believed to be buried, would tell the tale to anyone who would listen. One of her presentations is part of the Brit Bailey file at the Brazoria County Historical Museum.
Now it takes the form of a mysterious light that floats across the prairie and darts up into the tops of the trees,” she told a group of school children in a video recording from 1984. "It's been a well-established fact that Brit Bailey does haunt the prairie in the shape of a light.”
Why? They say it’s an angry Brit Bailey, with that lantern he was buried with, roaming the prairie searching for that jug of whiskey his wife removed from his grave.
Jamie Murray says the first sighting of Bailey’s ghost, as detailed in the book “Victorian Lady on the Texas Frontier” was by a family who says they saw Bailey himself.
"But from then on nobody ever saw his form, just a light, just the bouncing light,” said Murray.
"Daddy saw Bailey's Light several times,” Pekar said, recounting the stories of her own father, although she admits her dad sometimes just had fun telling the story whether he believed it or not. "When I go past Bailey's Prairie, I always look for him.”
To the doubters, 184 years of sightings of Bailey's Light are nothing more than occasional puffs of South Texas natural gas. And a few local historians might be doubters, too.
We like our ghosts, and I don't necessarily believe in ghosts, but I believe in ghost stories,” Pekar said.
“Well part of me believes in it. And then part of me knows that there are more rational forces in the world,” Murray laughed. "Do I believe it's old Brit Bailey with his lantern, looking for his jug of whiskey? I'd hate to have to say, because that ruins the story.”
A story that tells us Bailey was a nemesis of Stephen F. Austin.
The two didn't necessarily get along. But now, as Austin's statue stands watch over Brazoria County along Highway 288, somewhere along Highway 35 Brit Bailey is in a grave still standing, too.
Although a roadside marker in front of Munson Cemetery on Highway 35 tells Bailey’s story, no one seems to know exactly where the infamous pioneer was buried back in 1832, only that he was buried under a large tree on a high ridge.
But if you ask the diehard believers in Brazoria County, Bailey’s Light still makes occasional appearances across the vast expanses of Bailey’s Prairie: an early Texas pioneer still on the prowl, still looking for trouble, and still looking for his jug of whiskey.
From The Texas Historical Association's The Handbook of Texas Online (
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BAILEY, JAMES BRITON (1779–1832). James Brit(t)on (Brit) Bailey, one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, was born in North Carolina on August 1, 1779. He married Edith Smith, and the couple had six children; after her death around 1815, Bailey married her sister, Nancy, also known as Dorothy or Dot Smith, and they had five children. Bailey apparently lived in Kentucky for a number of years and reportedly served in the legislature of that state; however he acquired a controversial reputation and may have been prosecuted for the crime of forgery before he left the state. He also resided in Tennessee for a number of years and fought in the War of 1812. He, his family, and six adult slaves moved to Texas around 1818 and settled near the Brazos River, where Bailey allegedly bought land from the Spanish government. After Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821 he continued to claim title to his land, although the Mexican government did not recognize his title. Possibly due either to Bailey's reputation in Kentucky or his questionable land claim, Stephen F. Austin ordered him to leave the Austin colony. However, on July 7, 1824, Austin recognized Bailey's squatter's claim to a league and a labor of land on the east bank of the Brazos River near what is now Bailey's Prairie.
Although Bailey and Austin reportedly disliked one another, Austin convened settlers from the lower Brazos region to Bailey's home to take an oath of fidelity to the Constitution of 1824. At that meeting Bailey became lieutenant of a company of militia. In 1829 Governor José María Viesca granted him a commission as captain. Bailey fought in the battles of Jones Creek and Velasco,qqv respectively in 1824 and 1832.
He became known for his eccentric behavior and frequently engaged in brawls. He died on December 6, 1832, probably from cholera. He was buried in the family graveyard on Bailey's Prairie. His will, still extant, required that he be buried standing up and facing the West" legend has added "with my rifle at my side and a jug of whiskey at my feet." His ghost is said to wander the area as a white round ball of light, known as Bailey's Light, searching for more whiskey. The Texas Historical Commission placed a marker near Bailey's Prairie in 1970 to commemorate his life.