Robert Rankin

Rankin was captured at the siege of Charleston and promoted to lieutenant when exchanged; on a furlough in 1781 he married Margaret (Peggy) Berry. In Kentucky he was a trustee of Washington and in 1792 a delegate to the Danville Convention, which drafted the state's first constitution. In 1832 the family moved to Joseph Vehlein's colony in Texas, and the town of Coldspring stands on his league. Sam Houston reputedly asked him in the spring of 1836 to keep the region's Indian nations neutral during the retreat. He was reburied at the State Cemetery in 1936.

What the plaque says

Robert Rankin (FRONT)Born in Virginia, 1753 - Died In Cold Springs, San Jacinto County, Texas, 1837 Erected by the State of Texas 1936 (BACK) Robert Rankin was an officer in the Continental Army, Virginia Troops, 1776, in the same company with his near kinsman, John Marshall, who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States - He participated in the Battle of Brandywine, Germantown and Stony Point and in the Siege of Charleston - Three of his sons, Joseph, John Keith, and James Rankin, served in the War of 1812 - Joseph was massacred by Indians at Fort Mims in Alabama in 1813 - John Keith and James Rankin died in Texas, as did two other sons, Frederick and Thomas, who had served in the Army of Texas

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Cemetery — steps away
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.3 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.4 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.0 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• Major William Cooke — steps away
• Richard Ellis — steps away
• Hardin R. Runnels — steps away
• William C. Crane — steps away