STEVENSON, ROBERT M. (ca. 1805-1843). Robert M. Stevenson, planter, merchant, and soldier, was born at Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland about 1805. He immigrated to Texas by way of Tennessee and before the Texas Revolution was living in the Washington County community of Coles Settlement. On October 9, 1835, he took part in the capture of Goliad in the company of Capt. George M. Collinsworth. Stevenson enlisted on March 11, 1836 as a private in Capt. William Warner Hill's Company H of Col. Edward Burleson's First Regiment, Texas Volunteers, and commanded the company in Hill's absence at the battle of San Jacinto. He received his discharge on May 30 but reenlisted on June 4 and served until September 4, 1836. Thereafter he returned to Coles Settlement and served in 1837 as clerk and in 1838 as sheriff of Washington County. Sometime between 1838 and 1840 he moved to the site of present Independence, Texas, and became one of the founders of that town. On June 7, 1842, in response to Rafael Vásquez's raid on San Antonio, Sam Houston commissioned Stevenson to command a company of militia for frontier defense. Stevenson died at his residence near Columbus in Colorado County on December 8, 1843. His enlistment papers describe him as standing six feet tall and having a fair complexion and hazel eyes. A second R. Stevenson fought at the battle of San Jacinto in the company of Capt. William Kimbrough.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Muster Rolls of the Texas Revolution (Austin, 1986). Sam Houston Dixon and Louis Wiltz Kemp, The Heroes of San Jacinto (Houston: Anson Jones, 1932). Telegraph and Texas Register, March 28, 1837, March 24, 1838. Amelia W. Williams and Eugene C. Barker, eds., The Writings of Sam Houston, 1813-1863 (8 vols., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1938-43; rpt., Austin and New York: Pemberton Press, 1970).
