NEBLETT, ROBERT CALDWELL (1795–1871). Robert Caldwell Neblett, physician, planter, and public official, was born in Roanoke, Virginia, on October 28, 1795. He served in the War of 1812 and taught school for two years before he entered the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his medical diploma. He practiced medicine in Tennessee and in Mississippi, where he married Maria Powe of South Carolina. In 1830 he moved to Louisiana. About 1833 he settled on the east bank of the Sabine River at what became known as Neblett's Bluff. Many immigrants bound for Texas received medical attention, supplies, and hospitality at his plantation. He bought many Texas land certificates from veterans of the Texas Revolution and moved to the state in 1840 or 1841. He lived at Houston for a time before starting a plantation on a site two miles northeast of Navasota in what is now southwest Grimes County. In 1843 he helped organize the Masonic Collegiate Institute at Anderson. In 1855–56 he represented Grimes County in the House of the Sixth Texas Legislature. He died in 1871 and was buried at Anderson. His name appears on a monument on the courthouse grounds at Anderson.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Members of the Legislature of the State of Texas from 1846 to 1939 (Austin: Texas Legislature, 1939). Harold Schoen, comp., Monuments Erected by the State of Texas to Commemorate the Centenary of Texas Independence (Austin: Commission of Control for Texas Centennial Celebrations, 1938).