Thomas (some sources say Thompson) Saltus Lubbock was born 1817 in South Carolina. When the Texas Revolution started, he marched to Nacogdoches with Capt. William G. Cooke’s company of New Orleans Greys and participated in the Siege of Béxar. Thereafter he took employment on a steamboat on the upper Brazos River and did not learn of Antonio López de Santa Anna’s incursion into Texas until after the battle of San Jacinto. After working for a time with Samuel May Williams and Thomas F. McKinney, Lubbock joined the Texan Santa Fe expedition as a lieutenant of one of the military companies. He and his men were captured in New Mexico and confined in Santiago Convent, Mexico City. Lubbock escaped by jumping from the convent’s balcony and made his way back to Texas. After Adrián Woll seized San Antonio in 1842, Lubbock was elected first lieutenant of Gardiner N. O. Smith’s company of Harris and Milam county volunteers and, due to Smith’s illness, marched at the head of the company to San Antonio de Béxar to join in driving the Mexicans back across the Rio Grande. Lubbock and his men were among the 189 Texans who followed Alexander Somervell back to Texas on December 19, 1842, after declining to join William S. Fisher on the Mier Expedition. He died in January 1862. He was the brother of Texas governor Francis R. Lubbock. Lubbock County was named in his honor.

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Chester Spalding Gorbet was born circa 1796 in Pennsylvania. He enlisted in E. L. R. Wheelock’s rangers, served from October 30, 1835, until February 20, 1836, and participated in the Siege of Béxar. Records indicate that a man named Gorbet enrolled on May 8, 1836, in Captain Benton’s company, served in the Texas Revolution, and, for service at the Siege of Béxar, received 320 acres and 640 acres of donation land in Brown County.

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William Oldham was born 1798 in Kentucky. He volunteered for the Texas army on October 8, 1835, and was elected a major in the Texian Infantry, Col. Philip A. Sublett commanding. He served in Capt. James G. Swisher’s company until December 22, 1835, and participated in the Siege of Béxar. He also served in the First Company of Texas Cavalry, Capt. William W. Hill commanding, from May 29, 1836, to August 2, 1836. During Indian alarms the settlers in the area took refuge at his home, which became known as “Fort Oldham.” He hired a substitute for Edwin Morehouse’s expedition to Comanche Peak in 1838–39. On October 17, 1842, he volunteered for the Somervell expedition and was appointed paymaster of the regiment commanded by Col. James Cook. He also participated in the Mier expedition and was taken prisoner on December 25, 1842. During his captivity he was able to secure loans totaling $2,000 from a friend, an Englishman whom he had known in Kentucky, which he distributed among his “suffering fellow prisoners.” When the Texans tried to escape on February 11, 1843, Oldham, along with John Rufus Alexander, was able to make his way back to San Antonio on or about April 5, 1843. He returned to Fort Oldham and again was called on by the settlers in 1844 to fight Indians at “Battleground Prairie” near Cedar Creek on the Burleson-Milam county line. This was the last major fight with Indians in the county. In 1849 Major Oldham petitioned the Texas legislature for payment for his services and loss of property while serving in the army.

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