Fayette County Texas handbook online has this small info about Joel Walter Robinson. Also spelled Robison. Below is detailed family info. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/FF/hcf3.html FAYETTE COUNTY. Fayette County (L-18) is on Interstate Highway 10 sixty miles southeast of Austin in the Blackland Prairies region of south central Texas. The center of the county lies at 29°55' north latitude and 96°55' west longitude. La Grange is the county seat and largest community. ......... The early settlers' life revolved around their plantations, but problems with Indians occupied much of their time. Sometimes the settlers felt so threatened that they moved down to the lower Colorado River area. At other times they grouped together, sometimes aided by Lipan Apache and Tonkawa Indians who were friendly to the settlers, to resist marauding bands of Comanches, Wacos, and Kichais. Fayette County men were prominent in the Texas Revolution;qv more than fifty men participated in the battle of San Jacinto,qv including Joel Walter Robinson,qv one of the captors of Antonio López de Santa Anna.qv The Somervell, Mier,qqv and Dawson expeditions were composed mostly of Fayette County men. .... BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frank Lotto, Fayette County: Her History and Her People (Schulenburg, Texas: Sticker Steam Press, 1902; rpt., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981). Worth Stickley Ray, Austin Colony Pioneers (Austin: Jenkins, 1949; 2d ed., Austin: Pemberton, 1970). Julia Lee Sinks, Chronicles of Fayette (La Grange, Texas, Bicentennial Commission, 1975). Julia Lee Sinks, "Editors and Newspapers of Fayette County," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 1 (July 1897). Houston Wade, comp., The Dawson Men of Fayette County (Houston, 1932). Leonie Rummel Weyand and Houston Wade, An Early History of Fayette County (La Grange, Texas: La Grange Journal, 1936). MORE INFO ON THIS PERSON: http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/dewittbios3o-z2.htm#robison (Photo available online) ROBISON. Joel Walter Robison (also spelled Robinson in some records) was born in Washington County, GA on 5 Oct 1815 and came to current BrazosCo with his father, John G. Robison, in 1831. The Robison's moved to current FayetteCo in 1833 where they received a league on the west side of Cummings Creek. Both Robisons participated in the battle of Velasco in Jun 1832. Joel participated in the Grass Fight and Siege of Bexar in 1835. He was at San Jacinto with Capt. Heard's Company F Infantry, 1st Regiment and was with the group of men who captured Santa Anna which he explained in his own words: "I was one of a detachment of thirty or forty men commanded by Colonel Burleson, which left the encampment of the Texas army at sunrise of the morning after the Battle of San Jacinto, to pursue the fugitive enemy. Most of us were mounted on horses captured from the Mexicans. We picked up two or three cringing wretches before we reached Vince's bayou, eight or nine miles from our camp. Colonel Burleson gave them a few lines in pencil stating that they had been made prisoners by him, and sent them back to our camp without a guard. Colonel Burleson with the greater part of our detachment went up Vince's Bayou but six of us, to wit, Sylvester, Miles, Vermillion, Thompson, another man whose name I have forgotten, and myself, proceeded a short distance farther down the bayou, but not finding any Mexicans, turned our course toward camp. About two miles east of Vince's Bayou, the road leading from the bridge to the battleground crossed a ravine a short distance below its source. As we approached this ravine we discovered a man standing in the prairie near one of the groves. He was dressed in citizen's clothing, a blue cottonade frock coat and pantaloons. I was the only one of our party who spoke any Spanish. I asked the prisoner various questions, which he answered readily. In reply to the question whether he knew where Santa Anna and Cos were, he said he presumed they had gone to the Brazos. He said he was not aware that there were any of his countrymen concealed near him, but said there might be in the thicket along the ravine. Miles mounted the prisoner on his horse and walked as far as the road, about a mile. Here he ordered the prisoner to dismount, which he did with great reluctance. He walked slowly and apparently with pain. Miles, who was a rough, reckless fellow, was carrying a Mexican lance, which he had picked up during the morning. With this weapon he occasionally slightly pricked the prisoner to quicken his pace, which sometimes amounted to a trot. At length he stopped and begged permission to ride saying that he belonged to the cavalry and was unaccustomed to walking. We paused and deliberated as to what should be done with him. I asked him if he would go on to our army if left to travel at his leisure. He replied that he would. Miles insisted that the prisoner should be left behind, but said that if he were left, he would kill him. At length my compassion for the prisoner moved me to mount him behind me. I also took charge of his bundle. He was disposed to converse as we rode along; asked me many questions, the first of which was, 'Did General Houston command in person in the action of yesterday?' He also asked how many prisoners we had taken and what we were going to do with them. When, in answer to an inquiry, I informed him that the Texian force in the battle of the preceding day was less than eight hundred men, he said I was surely mistaken, that our force was certainly much greater. In turn, I plied the prisoner with divers questions. I remember asking him why he came to Texas to fight against us, to which he replied that he was a private soldier, and was bound to obey his officers. I asked him if he had a family. He replied in the affirmative, but when I inquired, 'Do you expect to see them again?' his only answer was a shrug of the shoulders. We rode to that part of our camp where the prisoners were kept, in order to deliver our trooper to the guard. What was our astonishment, as we approached the guard, to hear the prisoners exclaiming, 'El Presidente! El Presidente!' (The President, The President) by which we were made aware that we had unwittingly captured the 'Napoleon of the West.' The news spread almost instantaneously through our camp, and we had scarcely dismounted ere we were surrounded by an excited crowd. Some of our officers immediately took charge of the illustrious captive and conducted him to the tent of General Houston." Santa Anna supposedly gave Joel Robinson his gold braided vest in appreciation of the ride to the Texan camp and the vest was used many years by the young men of FayetteCo in wedding ceremonies. A similar narrative from Robison was discovered in the diary of Dr. W.G. deGraffenried of Round Top, WashingtonCo, TX apparently transcribed from a personal account in 1858: Colonel J. W. Robison of this County informs me that four years out of twelve he made 1500 lbs. of cotton to the acre, but that the average amount was about 1200. He also gave me a description of the way in which he took Santa Anna prisoner at the battle of San Jacinto with a minute detail of all of the circumstances in connection with it. He informed me that on the next day after the memorable Battle, he with 5 other men went out in search of the dispersed men of the Mexican ranks, and after going some distance from the encampment , saw in an open prairie, at the distance of a half mile, a man standing, to whom he approached and addressed him in the Mexican language, asking him if he was an officer in the Mexican Army, to which he replied he was not. We then inquired of him if he knew where any Mexicans were and if he knew where Santa Anna and General Cos were. To which he replied he did not, but supposed they were somewhere between there and the Brazos. One of the men, Thompson, dismounted, and gave him his horse to ride while he went on foot through some timber to see if he could find any more Mexicans. But not being successful, he returned to his party and made Santa Anna dismount and he mounted. Santa Anna then took it on foot for half a mile being spurred occasionally with a lance that one of our men had in his hand. Santa Anna complained a great deal meanwhile of his feet, and desired very much to ride, and called Colonel Robison to him for he was the only one that could speak the Mexican language, and got him to intercede in his behalf. As they were getting on so slowly most of the men wished to leave him, but one remarked that he would kill him first, and that if the rest would go ahead he would make way with him. But in the meantime Colonel Robison interceded in his behalf and took him up behind him and carried him into the encampment. As soon as they arrived at the city and some men saw him they cried out, "Santa Anna." He then requested the Colonel to carry him immediately to the Commander General Houston, to which request he complied. He then dismounted and told the General I am Santa Anna and surrender myself to you, remarking at the same time that the brave is always generous. The Colonel went to see him on the next day to deliver a small bundle, which he had brought along with him, belonging to Santa Anna, but he informed the Colonel that he was welcome to it in which was contained a fine vest with gold buttons which the Colonel brought with him home, and sometime ago lent it to one of his friends to get married in who has not yet returned it. He loaned it to another, and I doubt not it has attended several weddings and is still going the rounds. He thanked the Colonel very much for the kind and hospitable manner in which he treated him the preceding day. Colonel Robison informed me that he had been cultivating the same piece of land which he now has in cultivation for the last 15 years, and sees no deterioration in its fertility. Very little land in this section that cannot be cultivated. All the creeks in these parts stop running in the summer season if they run at all, they run beneath the surface of the earth. In Dec 1836, Joel Robison was appointed by Houston to Lieutenant and charged with organizing a mounted ranger company to look after security in the Gonzales area, but it is unclear if the company saw significant action and whether Robison spent a significant time in Gonzales to contribute to the area. Most of his life he resided in FayetteCo near Warrenton where he was active in public service until his death in 4 Aug 1889. He was first buried in Roundtop, but he and wife Emily A. Alexander (b. Kentucky; d. 23 Nov 1886), whom he married in 1837, were re-interred at the State Cemetery in Austin in 1932. HIS FATHER: John C. Robison and family came to Texas via New Orleans (some records say from Florida). At the custom house at the mouth of the Brazos, he registered his slaves as indentured peons according to Mexican law. He was elected to the first Congress of the Republic which met in Columbia in 1836. On 26 Nov 1836 he and his younger brother Walter, who was visiting Texas, were attacked and killed by a band of 30 to 40 comanches while they were on the way to neighbor C. Steven's place about five miles away. They were on their way to pick up some supplies from Columbia. Upon learning that Indian horse thieves were in the area, son Joel Robison began a search for his father and about a mile from home found his father's oxen and oxcart and his scalped, nude and mutilated body nearby. Not far away was the body of his uncle in similar condition.