Robert Wilson (Texas politician)
Texas politician and entrepreneur
Robert "Honest Bob" Wilson (1793 – 1856) was a land speculator and politician in Texas.
Early life
Robert Wilson was born in Talbot County, Maryland, on December 7, 1792, to James and Elizabeth (Hardcastle) Wilson. Robert Wilson received some schooling and learned a variety of skills in Baltimore, including carpentry, machining, and running boilers. He joined the military service of the United States during the War of 1812.
Career and personal life
Wilson fought in the Battle of 1812.
In 1819, Wilson married Margaret Prendergrast, after which they moved to St. Louis.
Robert Wilson ran for the presidency of the Republic of Texas in 1838. Initially he was engaged in a four-way race with Vice-President Mirabeau Lamar, Peter Grayson, and James Collinsworth, but Grayson committed suicide on July 9, 1838, and Collingsworth drowned in Galveston Bay two days later. Lamar won the race by a landslide, 6,987 votes to 252 for Wilson.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Wilson (Texas politician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.