Joel Walter Robison
Born in Georgia Oct. 5, 1815
Died in Fayette County, Texas
August 4, 1889
His Wife
Emily A. Alexander Robison
Born in Kentucky
Died in Fayette County, Tex.
November 23, 1886
Erected by the State of Texas
Back of headstone
A Veteran of San Jacinto
Member of the Legislature
of the State of Texas
One of the Captors
of Santa Anna
April 22, 1836
|
| Full Name: |
Joel Walter Robison |
| Location: |
Section:Republic Hill, Section 1 (C1)
Row:P Number:4 |
| Reason for Eligibility: |
Republic of Texas Veteran; Texas Ranger; Member, Texas House of Representatives; Delegate, Constitutional Convention of 1875 |
| Birth Date: |
October 4, 1815 |
| Died: |
August 4, 1889 |
| Burial Date: |
Reinterred in 1932 |
| | ROBISON, JOEL WALTER (1815-1889). Joel Walter Robison, soldier and legislator, was born in Washington County, Georgia, on October 4 or 5, 1815, the son of John G. Robison. He moved to Texas from Florida with his parents and one sister in 1831 and settled first near Columbia in Brazoria County. With his father, he served in Capt. Henry Stevenson Brown's company at the battle of Velasco on June 26, 1832. In 1833 the family moved to a farm on the west bank of Cummings Creek in Fayette County, and Robison became a volunteer Indian fighter in the company of Capt. John York. He served at the siege of Bexar in 1835 and took part in the Grass Fight and the battle of Concepción. According to William DeRyee, Robison was William B. Travis's last messenger from the Alamo; he bore a dispatch dated February 24, 1836. At the battle of San Jacinto, Robison was a private in Capt. William Jones Elliot Heard's Company F of Col. Edward Burleson's First Regiment, Texas Volunteers, and was one of the party that captured Antonio López de Santa Anna. The Mexican general is said to have entered the Texan camp riding double on Robison's horse. On December 14, 1836, Sam Houston commissioned Robison a first lieutenant in the Texas Rangers. In 1837 Robison married Emily Almeida Alexander, who was born in Kentucky in 1821. They became the parents of seven children. In 1840 Robison owned 6,652 acres in Fayette County, and on January 31, 1840, he was elected commissioner of the Fayette County land office. His brother-in-law, Jerome B. Alexander, was killed in the Dawson Massacre in 1842. Robison became a prosperous planter and was elected in 1860 as a Democrat to the Eighth Legislature, where he favored secession. He served until 1862. From 1870 until 1879 he owned a store in Warrenton in partnership with one of his sons. At the end of the Reconstruction period he was elected to the Constitutional Convention of 1875. Emily Robison died in 1887, and Joel died at his home in Warrenton on August 4, 1889. Both were buried in the Florida Chapel Cemetery near Round Top, but in 1932 their remains were moved to the State Cemetery in Austin. Robison, an active Mason, was second vice president of the Texas Veterans Association at the time of his death.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Founders and Patriots of the Republic of Texas (Austin, 1963-). Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Muster Rolls of the Texas Revolution (Austin, 1986). William DeRyee and R. E. Moore, The Texas Album of the Eighth Legislature, 1860 (Austin: Miner, Lambert, and Perry, 1860). Sam Houston Dixon and Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Heroes of San Jacinto (Houston: Anson Jones, 1932). Memorial and Genealogical Record of Southwest Texas (Chicago: Goodspeed, 1894; rpt., Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1978). Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832-1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941). Gifford E. White, 1830 Citizens of Texas (Austin: Eakin, 1983).
Thomas W. Cutrer
"ROBISON, JOEL WALTER." The Handbook of Texas Online. [Accessed Fri Feb 28 12:52:15 US/Central 2003]. |
|
Follow Us