Philip Allen Sublett was born 1802 in Kentucky. He participated in the battle of Nacogdoches in 1832 and was chosen as the delegate from Ayish Bayou (the San Augustine community) to the conventions of 1832 and 1833. On November 1, 1834, Sublett was elected second judge of the San Augustine municipality. He was represented as being of “good character” with a “knowledge of law of state and republic”. In 1835 Sublett was elected chairman of the San Augustine Committee of Safety and Correspondence.
On October 6, 1835 he submitted a resolution appointing Sam Houston commander in chief of the forces of San Augustine and Nacogdoches districts until the Consultation should meet and make other arrangements. On October 19 Sublett led “seventy and upward well mounted men, and all well armed,” from San Augustine into Nacogdoches en route to the Texas army besieging San Antonio. When Sublett’s men arrived in Gonzales from Washington-on-the-Brazos on November 3, they found almost all of the men away in Stephen F. Austin’s army, and they perpetrated a number of outrages. According to John Fisher, secretary of the municipality’s committee of public safety, the men from Ayish Bayou “entered private houses, compelled women to leave their house[es] with their children and seek protection from their neighbors, broke open doors, robbed of money, clothing, and everything they could lay their hands on, and dragged Dr. [Launcelot] Smither from his bed and would have murdered him but for the interference of someone of the company who possessed some more of the milk of human kindness than the balance”. Sublett was commissioned lieutenant colonel October 23, and on November 24 he was appointed as an appraiser to place a value on the horses and equipment of the volunteers. He was later named assistant adjutant general of the army. He served until December 14, 1835, and was present at the Siege of Béxar, December 5–10, 1835, and although he opposed the plan to storm the city, he acted “with great bravery & coolness encouraging the men at every point” during the battle of Concepcion, according to Edward Burleson. On December 18, pleading the press of “private affairs,” he declined the command of the First Regiment, Texas Volunteers, in favor of Edward Burleson. Sublett died at his San Augustine home on February 25, 1850.
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