Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 469 of 894
762 p., [172] leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 30 cm.View a full description of this book.
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392
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
he died June 5th the following year. Mr. Rabb
volunteered in the patriot army in 1836 and was at
the battle of San Jacinto. He was also in the
frontier service and helped as often as occasion demanded
to repel the attacks of Indians, and pursued
them and recaptured booty they had taken
during their raids. He was very little, if any, in
public life, though a public-spirited, patriotic citizen.
He was liberal, active and earnest, a man of a
strong mechanical turn of mind, and always manifested
interest in industrial pursuits of some sort.
He was a zealous member of the Methodist Church
and a liberal contributor to his church. He gave
the lumber to build the first Methodist church ever
erected in San Antonio, the lumber being hauled
from his mill in Fayette County to San Antonio by
Mexicans on ox-carts.
Mr. Rabb's widow survived him a little over
twenty years, dying in 1882, in the seventy-seventh
year of her age. She was justly entitled to be
called one of the mothers of Texas, having come
to the country when it was a Mexican province, and
lived through ill the changing vicissitudes of its
fortunes for sixty years. She was living in the
country when Texas threw off the yoke of Mexican
despotism and established an independent republic;
she was here when the young but vigorous Republic
asked for admission into the American Union; shesaw Texas withdraw from the Union and again enter
the sisterhood of States, thus living under five governments.
She was well known to, and knew many
old Texians, and possessed a large fund of reminiscences
concerning Texas people.
Mr. and Mrs. Rabb were the parents of nine
children, one of whom died in infancy, one at about
the age of nine, the other seven living to maturity.
They had three sons in the Confederate army,
viz.: Zebulon M. P., John W., and Virgil S. Of
the seven children referred to, but three are now
living, viz.: Virgil S., Mrs. Bettie Croft, and Gail
T. Rabb.
Gail T. Rabb, the youngest of this pioneer family,
was born at Rutersville, Fayette County, Texas, in
1847, and was reared there until he was thirteen, at
which time, in 1860, his parents moved to Travis
County, where he has since resided. He has been
engaged in farming, stock-raising and milling, having
erected two grist mills. He is an enterprising,
well-to-do and highly respected citizen.
Mr. Gill L. Rabb married Miss Isabella Tharp,
of Robertson County, Texas, a daughter of Eli W.
and Susanna Tharp, and a native of Ohio. She
was reared, however, in Texas, her parents coming
to this State when she was about five years old.
The issue of this marriage has been four children:
Derance, Walter Tharp, Mamie, and Tom Miller.STERLING C. ROBERTSON,
EMPRESARIO OF ROBERTSON'S COLONY.Sterling C. Robertson was born in Nashville,
Tenn., about the year 1785. He served as Major
of Tennessee troops in the War of 1812 and 1814
and was honorably discharged. He received a
liberal education and was reared in the occupation
of planting. He engaged in agriculture in Giles
County, Tenn., but in a few years moved to Nashville.
Enterprising and adventurous, and being
possessed of large means, in the year 1823 he
formed a company in Nashville to explore the wild
province of Texas. He penetrated as far as Brazos
and formed a permanent camp at the mouth of
Little river. All the party returned to Tennessee,
however, except Col. Robertson. He visited
the settlements that had been made and, while
there, conceived the idea of planting a colony in
Texas. Filled with enthusiasm over this plan, hewent to his home in Tennessee; there he purchased"
a contract that had been made by the Mexican
government with Robert Leftwich for the settlement
of 800 families. The colonial grant embraced
a tract of land, and by the terms of the contract
Col. Robertson was given six years in which to
introduce the 800 fanmilies; he was to receive forty
leagues and forty labors of land for his services.
In 1829, at his own expense, he introduced 100
families, who were driven out by the military in
consequence of false representations made to the
government in regard to Col. Robertson and his
colonists. The matter was finally adjusted and in
the spring of 1834 the colony was restored, and in
the summer of the same year he laid out the town
of Sarahville D'Viesca. A land office was opened
about October 1, of the same year, and the settle
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Brown, John Henry. Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, book, 1880~; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/469/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.