Person:Sterling Robertson (2)

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Sterling Clack Robertson (1785–1842) was an empresario from Tennessee, during Mexican Texas. He introduced 600 families into Robertson's Colony. Robertson was also an elected delegate to the Washington-on-the-Brazos convention, signing both the and the . He became a Senator during the first two sessions of the Congress of the Republic of Texas.

EMPRESARIO STERLING CLACK ROBERTSON FOUNDER OF ROBERTSON'S COLONY IN TEXAS By Dr. Malcolm D. McLean Sterling Clack Robertson was born on October 2, 1785, in Nashville, Tennessee. His father was Elijah Robertson, a brother of General James Robertson, the "Father of Middle Tennessee," and his mother was Sarah (Maclin) Robertson, for whom he later named the capital of his colony in Texas. His education was placed in the hands of Judge John McNairy, with instructions that he should have "as liberal education as the circumstances will admit of."

On November 13, 1814, he enlisted under Major General William Carroll, who was going to New Orleans to fight the British, and he was assigned the position of Assistant Quarter Master General. During that campaign he was detached from New Orleans to Natchez to furnish supplies for the hospital at the nearby town of Washington, and for the sick who were left at the Choctaw Agency on the return march to Tennessee. He was granted an honorable discharge on May 13, 1815, with the rank of Major.

By October 24, 1816, he was living on Richland Creek in present Giles County, Tennessee, on a 2,027 acre plantation. This was due south of Nashville, on the Alabama border. There, on August 21, 1820, he and Frances King became the parents of a son known in Texas history as Elijah Sterling Clack Robertson. This son was the Robertson who founded Salado, Texas, and Salado College. His home still stands there just west of Highway I-35.

Returning now to the father, Major Sterling C. Robertson was one of seventy members of the Texas Association who on March 2, 1822, signed a memorial asking the Mexican Government for permission to settle in Texas. They finally received a contract in 1825, known as Leftwich's Grant, and Robertson came to Texas with the party sent to explore the territory, leaving Nashville on November 21, 1825, and remaining in Texas at least until August 24, 1826, on which date he made a deposition in San Felipe de Austin concerning the wife of Ellis Bean..

On October 15, 1827, this colonization project became known as the Nashville Colony, but nothing was actually done toward bringing settlers to Texas until April 26, 1830, when Robertson began to sign up families. The area assigned for settlements by the Nashville Company was transferred to Austin & Williams on February 25, 1831, and remained under their control until May 22, 1834.

However, on May 22, 1834, after Austin & Williams had made a huge speculation of the area by allowing non-resident land owners to locate eleven-league grants there, but had failed to introduce any actual settlers, the State Government of Coahuila and Texas recognized Sterling C. Robertson as EMPRESARIO, and immediately he began to bring in families in large numbers, many of them at his own expense. He had introduced 600 families before the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. The area covered by the Nashville Company Contract was transferred back to Austin & Williams on May 18, 1835. Nevertheless, William H. Steele, Land Commissioner for Robertson's Colony, was in Monclova on the day when that decree was passed, and he knew that no constitutional quorum was present when the staste legislature took action, so he went right on issuing land titles in Robertson's Colony until all the Texas colonial land offices were closed by the Consultation, meeting in San Felipe de Austin, on November 13, 18 35.

The Robertson Colony occupied an area in the Brazos River basin, about 100 miles wide and 200 miles long, beginning at the point where the road from Nacogdoches to San Antonio crossed the Navasota River; thence southwest along that road, crossing the Brazos and continuing to the ridge between the Brazos and the Colorado; thence northwest along that ridge to the extreme headwaters of Little River; thence northeast to the Cross Timbers; thence southeast along the watershed between the Brazos and the Trinity, to the headwaters of the Navasota, and thence down the Navasota to the point of beginning. After the Texas Revolution, that area was broken up to form all or part of 30 present-day Texas counties, as follows: Bastrop, Bell, Bosque, Brazos, Brown, Burleson, Burnet, Callahan, Comanche, Coryell, Eastland, Erath, Falls, Hamilton, Hill, Hood, Jack, Johnson, Lampasas, Lee, Limestone, McLennan, Milam, Mills, Palo Pinto, Parker, Robertson, Somervell, Stephens, and Williamson.

Meanwhile, Robertson had become Captain of a Ranger company what was mustered into service on January 17, 1836, and command of this company was taken over by Captain Calvin Boales on September 11, 1836. With the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, Robertson and his nephew, George Campbell Childress, had been elected as delegates to the Convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos (March 1-17, 1836), where Childress drafted the Texas Declaration of Independence. Both Robertson and Childress signed that Declaration and the Constitution of the Republic of Texas.

Robertson participated in the Battle of San Jacinto (April 20-21, 1836), and joined in the pursuit of the Mexican Army as it fled across country toward the Rio Grande. From the fall of 1836 to the spring of 1838 he served as Senator in the First and Second Congresses of the Republic of Texas, helping to lay the foundation for the new nation. During that time he served as Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, and as Chairman of the Committee on Roads, Bridges, and Ferries. This latter committee had to organize the justices' courts and create and define the office and power of the commissioners of roads and revenue. He was also a member of the Committee on Military Affairs, the Committee on Private Land Claims, the Committee on Finance, and the Committee on Naval Affairs.

However, his most important contribution of all was his sponsorship of the bill creating the General Land Office, which controls every inch of land--and water--in Texas. In 1838 he retired and devoted his time to raising fine race horses, becoming the first known Texan to keep written records of horse breeding in Texas. He had an Arabian stallion named Black Douglass, sired by Leviathan, from the Royal Stables in England, a direct descendant of the Godolphin Arabian, and he named the colts after characters in Sir Walter Scott's novels.

He died in Robertson County, just across the Brazos River from Nashville, Texas, on March 4, 1842, and in 1935 his remains were removed to Austin, Texas, and reburied in the Texas State Cemetery. 1