Meriwether Woodson “Poker” Smith was born circa 1807. At Harrisburg on June 4, 1835, he and fifty-seven others signed an agreement to assemble in Harrisburg on June 6, elect officers, and proceed to Anahuac to attack the Mexican garrison there. Notations on the document made after the garrison’s capitulation at the end of the month indicate that he decided against participating in the attack. He did, however, carry Travis’s account of the event from San Felipe to Henry Smith in Columbia.

He represented Harrisburg at the Consultation in the fall of 1835, and on his motion on November 12, 1835, Sam Houston was elected major general of the armies of Texas. Two days later he moved that the Consultation adjourn and that all members who were able to do so should repair to San Antonio to assist in the siege. On December 12, 1835, Smith, James W. Fannin, Jr., and other “citizens of Matagorda and its vicinity” addressed a recommendation of port officers for the port of Matagorda to Governor Henry Smith and the General Council. He served in the army during the Texas Revolution from October 1, 1835, to April 5, 1836. He participated in the Siege of Béxar in December 1835 and on December 20 of that year 1835 was elected a first lieutenant of the Legion of Cavalry by the General Council. He was sent to recruit men in Alabama and left there in mid-February 1836. In March sixteen recruits deserted in New Orleans because He had not been allotted sufficient funds for provisions to get them to Texas. Pursuant to Houston’s orders, He positioned his thirty-two-man force on the prairie east of the Brazos opposite Thompson’s Ferry in late March and early April. He was then suffering from a lingering illness that he had contracted while recruiting. He tendered his resignation on April 5, 1836, due to his illness, and sent twenty-six of his men to join Houston’s force. He died in Harrisburg on July 26, 1837.

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Dr. Thomas F.L. Parrott was born about 1804. In the summer of 1832 Parrott joined the schooner Brazoria near Fort Velasco and served on it during the battle of Velasco (June 26–27). In early 1833 Parrott was one of fourteen deputies from different parts of the Municipality of Brazoria to participate, by invitation of alcalde Henry Smith, in a convention that adopted the civil code of Louisiana until the state laws of Coahuila and Texas could be received and translated.

At the Siege of Béxar he commanded an artillery company. At a council of officers of James Bowie’s command, held on November 2, 1835, below San Antonio de Béxar, Captain Parrott cast one of only two votes favoring an immediate storming of the town and voted against the division immediately uniting with the main army. In a letter to Governor Henry Smith on December 1, Capt. James Walker Fannin praised Parrott for his experience as an artillerist. Parrott was appointed a second major of artillery in the regular army by the General Council on March 10, 1836. He entered the army with that rank on March 22. He died probably in early 1839.

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Daniel Shipman was born 1801 in North Carolina. He served in Capt. Francis W. Johnson’s company in the Anahuac Disturbances of 1832 and in Capt. John Byrd’s company at the Siege of Béxar. He was with Lt. Thomas H. Borden, the company’s temporary commander, at the storming of the city in December 1835, and is said to have been at the side of Benjamin R. Milam when he was shot. On August 2, 1836, Shipman and his father enlisted in Byrd’s four-month volunteers; Shipman served until the company was disbanded on January 18, 1837. Shipman died near Goliad on March 4, 1881, at the home of his son Daniel, Jr. His younger brother John was killed on the Mier expedition.

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Robert Wilson was born 1793 in Maryland and he served with Maryland troops during the War of 1812. At some point he built two customhouses for the Mexican government, at Galveston and Velasco. In 1832 he joined fellow Texans in laying siege to the garrison at Anahuac. He subsequently provided two ships to transport the Mexican troops at Anahuac back to Mexico. In 1832 and 1833 he was elected a delegate to conventions in San Felipe that considered Texas grievances. Wilson volunteered for the army in 1835 and became a colonel. After participating in the Siege of Béxar in November, he left for New Orleans to raise money and volunteers. When he returned in May 1836, after the San Jacinto victory, he found that his entire livelihood at Harrisburg had been burned by the Mexican army. Robert Wilson died on May 25, 1856, and was buried in a family cemetery in Houston.

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Samuel C.A. Rogers was born 1810 in Virginia. He participated in battles against the Lipan Apaches and Tonkawas and in the summer of 1832 fought in the battle of Sandy Creek. On July 17, 1835, he was elected secretary of the Lavaca-Navidad Meeting, which drew up a document protesting the Mexican government’s treatment of American colonists. Mexican officials later ordered the seizure of all participants of the meeting, but warned by his future mother-in-law of his impending arrest, Rogers escaped. In the fall of 1835 he was a member of the Texas Army of the People and participated in the Grass Fight and the Siege of Béxar. During this time he served in Capt. John Alley’s company. He was a member of Capt. John Sutherland’s company from June to September 1836. In August 1840 he was also involved in the battle of Plum Creek against the Comanches, and he was with Capt. Lafayette Ward’s company on the campaign against Rafael Vásquez in 1842. Rogers died on February 13, 1892.

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