Major Robert Simpson Neighbors

Neighbors was born a Neighbours; the Handbook of Texas says he later dropped the u from his surname. Orphaned at four months, he was educated by tutors hired by his guardian, the planter Samuel Hamner, and at nineteen left Virginia, staying a while in Louisiana before Texas. Freed from Mexican captivity on March 24, 1844, he got a federal appointment as special Indian agent on March 20, 1847, and took part in councils with the Comanches (Numunuu) near the site of Waco in 1846 and on the San Saba in 1847. The Whigs ended his service in September 1849.

What the plaque says

Major Robert Simpson Neighbors who served in the Army of Texas, 1836 * Captured by General Woll, 1842 * U. S. Indian agent, 1845 * Born in Virginia, November 3, 1815 * Died September 14, 1859 Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Belknap — 0.5 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 8.8 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.

More markers nearby

• Major Robert S. Neighbors — 0.4 mi
• Camp Belknap, C.S.A. — 0.4 mi
• Colonel William C. Young — 0.5 mi
• Tonkawa Scouts, C.S.A. — 0.5 mi