DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Out on the Old San Felipe Trail — one of those ancient Texas roads that feels like it remembers everything — there stands a marker for a place called Round Top, out in Fayette County. And what the marker is really doing, when you read it close, is holding a roll call.
A long, solemn roll call of men who showed up when Texas needed showin' up for. First name on that list: John C. Robison.
He was there at the Battle of Velasco. That's where this story starts reaching back. Then come the Veterans of San Jacinto — and there are several of them tied to this stretch of trail.
Joel W. Robison. McHenry Winburn.
Isaac Lafayette Hill. Spencer Burton Townsend. Stephen Townsend.
Five men who stood on that field when the Republic was still just a desperate idea somebody had to be willing to bleed for. And it doesn't stop there. J.
T. Townsend and John P. Townsend — they served in the San Jacinto Campaign as well, their names joined to that same chapter.
Then there's Mayers Fisher Jones, who carried himself into not one but two of the hardest enterprises Texas ever launched — the Santa Fe Expedition and the Snively Expedition. That's a man who kept saying yes when a reasonable person might've reconsidered. And John Rufus Alexander — his name is attached to the Mier Expedition.
If you know anything about the Mier Expedition, you understand why that name deserves a long, quiet pause. The marker gathers all of them together — these men and the other pioneers who resided in the vicinity — and it sets their memory right there on the Old San Felipe Trail, where travelers have been passin' through since before Texas was Texas. Some roads carry more history than the maps let on.
This one's got names carved into the very air above it.
What the marker says
On the Old San Felipe Trail, in memory of John C. Robison, participant of the Battle of Velasco; Joel W. Robison, McHenry Winburn, Isaac Lafayette Hill, Spencer Burton Townsend, Stephen Townsend, Veterans of San Jacinto; J. T. Townsend, John P. Townsend of the San Jacinto Campaign; Mayers Fisher Jones of the Santa Fe and Snively Expeditions; John Rufus Alexander of the Mier Expedition, and other Pioneers who resided in the vicinity.