Joel Walter Robison

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Joel Walter Robison
Texas State Representative from Fayette County
In office
January 1861 –January 1863
Personal details
BornOctober 1815
Washington County
Georgia, USA
DiedAugust 4, 1889 (aged 73)
Warrenton, Fayette County
Texas
Resting place Texas State Cemetery at Austin
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s)Emily Almeida Alexander Robison (married 1837–1887, her death)
ChildrenSeven children
ParentsMr. and Mrs. John G. Robison
Residence(1) Brazoria County, Texas
(2) Fayette County, Texas
OccupationFarmer, landowner
Military service
Service/branch Army of the Republic of Texas
Battles/wars Texas Revolution:

Siege of Béxar
Grass Fight
Battle of Concepción

Battle of San Jacinto

Joel Walter Robison (October 1815 – August 4, 1889) was a Georgia native and a fighter in the Texas Revolution. Years later, he served a single term in the Texas House of Representatives.

Georgia (U.S. state) State of the United States of America

Georgia is a state in the Southeastern United States. It began as a British colony in 1733, the last and southernmost of the original Thirteen Colonies to be established. Named after King George II of Great Britain, the Province of Georgia covered the area from South Carolina south to Spanish Florida and west to French Louisiana at the Mississippi River. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788. In 1802–1804, western Georgia was split to the Mississippi Territory, which later split to form Alabama with part of former West Florida in 1819. Georgia declared its secession from the Union on January 19, 1861, and was one of the original seven Confederate states. It was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15, 1870. Georgia is the 24th largest and the 8th most populous of the 50 United States. From 2007 to 2008, 14 of Georgia's counties ranked among the nation's 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South. Atlanta, the state's capital and most populous city, has been named a global city. Atlanta's metropolitan area contains about 55% of the population of the entire state.

Texas Revolution military conflict

The Texas Revolution was a rebellion of colonists from the United States and Tejanos in putting up armed resistance to the centralist government of Mexico. While the uprising was part of a larger one that included other provinces opposed to the regime of President Antonio López de Santa Anna, the Mexican government believed the United States had instigated the Texas insurrection with the goal of annexation. The Mexican Congress passed the Tornel Decree, declaring that any foreigners fighting against Mexican troops "will be deemed pirates and dealt with as such, being citizens of no nation presently at war with the Republic and fighting under no recognized flag." Only the province of Texas succeeded in breaking with Mexico, establishing the Republic of Texas, and eventually being annexed by the United States.

Texas House of Representatives

The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. As of the 2010 Census, each member represents about 167,637 people. There are no term limits, with the most senior member, Tom Craddick, having been elected in 1968.

Biography

Born in Rutherford County in Tennessee not long after the conclusion of the War of 1812, Robison relocated with his family in 1831 to Brazoria County in southeastern Texas. He and his father, John G. Robison, fought in the Battle of Velasco in Brazoria County in 1832, the first pitched clash between Anglo settlers of Texas and Mexican soldiers. The next year the Robisons moved to Fayette County on Cummins Creek of the southern Colorado River. In the revolution, Robison participated in the siege of Béxar in San Antonio, the Grass Fight south of San Antonio, and the Battle of Concepción at Mission Concepción in San Antonio, with Texian Army insurgents led by James Bowie and James Fannin. [1]

War of 1812 32-month military conflict between the United States and the British Empire

The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States, the United Kingdom, and their respective allies from June 1812 to February 1815. Historians in Britain often see it as a minor theater of the Napoleonic Wars; in the United States and Canada, it is seen as a war in its own right.

Brazoria County, Texas County in the United States

Brazoria County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, the population of the county was 313,166. The county seat is Angleton.

Battle of Velasco battle

The Battle of Velasco, fought June 25-26, 1832, was the first true military conflict between Mexico and settlers in what became Texas. It began when Texan insurgents attacked Fort Velasco, located in what was then Velasco and what is now the city of Surfside Beach. The Mexican commander during the conflict, Domingo de Ugartechea, tried to stop the Texans, under John Austin, from transporting a cannon up the Brazos River to attack the city of Anahuac. The Texian militia eventually prevailed over the Mexicans. Ugartechea surrendered after a two-day battle, once he realized he would not be receiving reinforcements, and his soldiers had run out.

Robison was first a private under Captain William Jones Elliot Heard (1801–1874) and Colonel Edward Burleson at the Battle of San Jacinto in Harris County on April 21, 1836, six weeks after the Battle of the Alamo. He was with the group which captured General Antonio López de Santa Anna at San Jacinto. López de Santa Anna was reported to have ridden into Sam Houston's camp riding double on Robison's horse. On December 14, 1836, with independence achieved, Sam Houston commissioned Robison a first lieutenant in the Texas Ranger Division. [1]

A private is a soldier of the lowest military rank.

Edward Burleson American politician

Edward Burleson was the third Vice President of the Republic of Texas. After Texas was annexed to the United States, he served in the State Senate. Prior to his government service in Texas, he was a commander of Texian Army forces during the Texas Revolution. Before moving to Texas, he served in militias in Alabama, Missouri, and Tennessee, and fought in the War of 1812. Burleson was the soldier that was given Santa Anna's sword when he surrendered.

Battle of San Jacinto decisive battle of the Texas Revolution

The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day Harris County, Texas, was the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican army in a fight that lasted just 18 minutes. A detailed, first-hand account of the battle was written by General Houston from Headquarters of the Texian Army, San Jacinto, on April 25, 1836. Numerous secondary analyses and interpretations have followed, several of which are cited and discussed throughout this entry.

Robison and his Kentucky-born wife, the former Emily Almeida Alexander, whom he wed in 1837, had seven children. In 1840, Robison was elected commissioner of the Fayette County land office. At the time he owned nearly seven thousand acres in the county. Jerome B. Alexander, his brother-in-law, was killed in the 1842 Dawson massacre, in which thirty-six Texan militiamen were killed by Mexican soldiers. The slaughter prompted the retaliatory Mier Expedition. [1]

Kentucky State of the United States of America

Kentucky, officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state located in the east south-central region of the United States. Although styled as the "State of Kentucky" in the law creating it, (because in Kentucky's first constitution, the name state was used) Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth. Originally a part of Virginia, in 1792 Kentucky became the 15th state to join the Union. Kentucky is the 37th most extensive and the 26th most populous of the 50 United States.

Dawson massacre

The Dawson massacre, also called the Dawson expedition, was an incident in which 36 Texian militiamen were killed by Mexican soldiers on September 17, 1842 near San Antonio de Bexar. The event occurred during the Battle of Salado Creek, which ended with a Texan victory. This was among numerous armed conflicts over the area between the Rio Grande and Nueces rivers, which the Republic of Texas tried to control after achieving independence in 1836.

Militia generally refers to an army or other fighting force that is composed of non-professional fighters

A militia is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a nation, or subjects of a state, who can be called upon for military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of regular, full-time military personnel, or historically, members of a warrior nobility class. Generally unable to hold ground against regular forces, it is common for militias to be used for aiding regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or irregular warfare, instead of being used in offensive campaigns by themselves. Militia are often limited by local civilian laws to serve only in their home region, and to serve only for a limited time; this further reduces their use in long military campaigns.

In 1860, at the age of forty-four, Robison was elected as a Democrat to the Texas House of Representatives from Fayette County. [2] He supported secession from the United States and the newly-established Southern Confederacy. From 1870 to 1879, he and one of his sons owned and operated a store in Warrenton, an unincorporated community in Fayette County. In 1875, near the close of the Reconstruction era, Robison was elected to the state constitutional convention. [1]

Democratic Party (United States) political party in the United States

The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.

Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Threats of secession can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals. It is, therefore, a process, which commences once a group proclaims the act of secession. It could involve a violent or peaceful process but these do not change the nature of the outcome, which is the creation of a new state or entity independent from the group or territory it seceded from.

Confederate States of America (de facto) federal republic in North America from 1861 to 1865

The Confederate States of America, commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865. The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave-holding states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—in the Lower South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African-American slaves.

Robison died in 1889, two years after the passing of his wife, at his home in Warrenton. First buried at the Florida Chapel Cemetery near Round Top in Fayette County, the Robisons were re-interred in 1932 at the Texas State Cemetery in the capital city of Austin. Robison was a member of the Masonic lodge and an officer at the time of his passing of the Texas Veterans Association. [1]

Round Top, Texas Town in Texas, United States

Round Top is a town in Fayette County, Texas, United States. The population was 90 at the 2010 census.

Texas State Cemetery cemetery in Austin, Texas, United States

The Texas State Cemetery (TSC) is a cemetery located on about 22 acres (8.9 ha) just east of downtown Austin, the capital of the U.S. state of Texas. Originally the burial place of Edward Burleson, Texas Revolutionary general and Vice-President of the Republic of Texas, it was expanded into a Confederate cemetery during the Civil War. Later it was expanded again to include the graves and cenotaphs of prominent Texans and their spouses.

Austin, Texas Capital of Texas

Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. It is the 11th-most populous city in the United States and the 4th-most populous city in Texas. It is also the fastest growing large city in the United States, the second most populous state capital, and the southernmost state capital in the contiguous United States. As of the U.S. Census Bureau's July 1, 2017 estimate, Austin had a population of 950,715 up from 790,491 at the 2010 census. The city is the cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock metropolitan statistical area, which had an estimated population of 2,115,827 as of July 1, 2017. Located in Central Texas within the greater Texas Hill Country, it is home to numerous lakes, rivers, and waterways, including Lady Bird Lake and Lake Travis on the Colorado River, Barton Springs, McKinney Falls, and Lake Walter E. Long.

In the 1962 episode "Davy's Friends" of the syndicated western television series, Death Valley Days , narrated by Stanley Andrews, the actor Tommy Rettig, formerly of the original Lassie series, played Robison. In the story line, Robison, called a "friend" of Davy Crockett, is sent on a diversion but quickly shows his military ability. Stephen Chase (1902–1982) played Sam Houston, and Russell Johnson was cast as Sergeant Tate in this segment. [3]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Robison, Joel Walter". Texas State Historical Association . Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  2. ↑ The Texas Legislative Reference Library has no information on members of the first eleven state legislative sessions.
  3. ↑ "Davy's Friend on Death Valley Days". Internet Movie Data Base . Retrieved August 3, 2015.
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