Robert Neighbors
Known as a fair and determined protector of Indian interests as guaranteed by treaty, he was murdered by a white man named Cornet, whose brother-in-law had been defamed by Neighbors, accusing the brother-in-law (one Patrick Murphy of Belknap, sheriff, saloon owner and businessman) a common horse thief, responsible for stealing horses from the reservation Indians.
[2] Neighbors left Virginia at the age of nineteen, and while he stayed briefly in New Orleans, his intention was always to immigrate to Texas, which he did in the early spring of 1836.
[3]: vii He joined the Army of the Republic of Texas on 30 January 1839 as a first lieutenant, commanding Fort Travis on Galveston Island before becoming quartermaster on 5 September, and promoted to captain on 15 July 1840 and served until the end of 1841.
[2][3]: 10–11, 14 On September 15, 1842, as a member of Captain John C. Hays's company of volunteers, Neighbors was in San Antonio attending Judge Anderson Hutchinson's court, when General Adrian Woll made his invasion of Texas and captured the city.
[3]: 15 Along with approximately fifty-two[3]: 16 other individuals, including the officers of the court, he was forcibly marched to Mexico, where he was subsequently imprisoned[2] in San Carlos Fortress.
[2] After the annexation of the Republic of Texas by the United States, Neighbors was a party to Treaty 246[4] between the US, represented by Indian commissioners Pierce M. Butler and M.G.
[3]: 28–30 Neighbors then accompanied the Penateka Comanche chiefs Old Owl and Santa Anna, plus the Anadarko chief Jose Maria, on their visit to Washington, D.C.[3]: 30 He received a federal appointment as special Indian agent, on March 20, 1847, and took part in the treaty between the Comanche and the German colonists on the San Saba River in March 1847, which resulted in the so-called Meusebach-Comanche Treaty.
The ultimate result was that he spent much time far beyond the then frontier and in the opinion of historians exercised greater influence over the Indians in Texas than any other white man of his generation.
[2] In 1845 as an Indian Agent for the Republic of Texas, Robert Neighbors recorded one of the best known meetings with the Penateka Comanche head Chief Old Owl, while visiting a Tonkawa camp.
[3]: 27 Chief Old Owl arrived with 40 warriors, and in a manner the Major called "most insolent and domineering" demanded that the Tonkawa feed the war party and their horses, and provide for them entertainment.
[3]: 28 [5] Neighbors, having left an indelible impression on Old Owl as the first (and only) Republic of Texas official to ever ride with a Comanche War Party, took his leave of them with thanks, and went home.
Worth, of the United States Army, who was in command of the Eighth Military Department, which included the former Republic of Texas, was ordered by Secretary of War William L. Marcy to explore a wagon route between San Antonio and El Paso.
[3]: 49 The General, headquartered in San Antonio, selected Neighbors to lead the expedition to establish the so-called "upper route" to El Paso.
[3]: 104 After urging from Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to Governor Bell, the Texas legislature passed a law in 1854 granting twelve leagues of land for establishing Indian reservations.
Randolph B. Marcy, with an escort of forty soldiers, left Fort Belknap in search of recommended sites for two Indian reservations to be established in 1855.
[3]: 134 Sites for the Caddo, Shawnee, Anadarko, Waco, Tawacano, and Tonkawa, were located along the north side of the Salt Fork Brazos River, south of what is now Graham in Young County.
Carpenter was abandoned to Col. W.C. Dalrymple, Texas Troops on 21 February 1861, after General David E. Twiggs agreed to surrender all federal military posts.
