Third child of Cornelius Benton Roberts and Rhoda Lindsey Roberts.∼Temple Telegram, Oct. 14, 1922.
John M. Roberts Aged Pioneer Dead
87 year old Temple Man Came To Bell County in Early Days of 1848
Saw County Organized
Autobiography Printed in 1918 tells of Indian Raids on Elm Creek and along Nolan and fights between soldiers From Fort Gates with Redskins ---- Bears Roamed This Section.

John M. Roberts, age 87 years, died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. J. E. Knowles, 1315 W. Ave. I., yesterday morning at 10:50 o'clock. Mr. Roberts was one of the Bell county pioneers who settled Bell county in the days when raiding Indians and wild animals roamed this section and several interesting articles have been published about his early life here.

The deceased leaves four sons and one daughter, D. H. Roberts of Uvalde, W. R. Roberts of Sterling City, C. M. Roberts of San Angelo, W. O. Roberts of Killeen and Mrs. J. E. Knowles of Temple; one sister, Mrs. Emily Blair of Killeen, also survives him.

Funeral services will be held today at 2 p.m. from the residence, conducted by Rev. B. B. Blaylock, assisted by Rev. P. T. Stanford. Pallbearers will be Tom C. Quesenberry, O. D. Withers, W. S. Skinner, Dave Cox, W. C. Lackey and C. L. Fuller After the services, the funeral party will leave for Killeen, arriving at the Killeen cemetery about 4 p.m. for interment services.

According to his autobiography published in the Killeen Herald in 1918, John M. Roberts was born in Choctaw County Mississippi March 21, 1835 and came to Texas with his father in 1845. They came to Bell County in 1848 stopping at the well-known old Brookshire spring.

"While we were there," he wrote, "a heavy snow fell and while the snow was on the ground my brother, N. T. Roberts, 18, killed a bear. After spending two or three weeks there we broke camp and went down on Salado creek and settled what is known as Manchaca 3 league grant, on the south side of the creek, opposite the present site of Summers Mill."

He told of Indian raids on the Lampasas and at Three Forks and said that "in the spring of 1850 the country having been settled up sufficiently strong, the people began to get anxious for a new county. A commission, composed of William Armstrong, surveyor, Cyrus Hart, Melvin Wilkerson, John Fulcher, Joe Dennis and C. B. Roberts were appointed to survey the county boundaries. When the survey was completed, the county seat was located and called Nolanville (now Belton) and the county was called Bell."

"In 1851 John Williams was moving from good old Arkansas and while camping on Elm creek, a party of Indians came and stole his horses. However, the U.S. Soldiers stationed at Fort Gates, recaptured the horses. In the summer of the same year (1851) a band of Indians, about 60 strong, came and established their camp in our neighborhood near where town of Salado now is. They got to stealing. Among other thefts they stole our salt, and two shirts and scared the women so that the people asked them to leave. And they did.

In the fall of 1853, while we were living on the Salado the Indians stole all the horses they could find on Nolan creek. The heaviest losers were the Cox and the Suttons.

In the same year (1853) there was a heavy rain on Nolan creek and the flood washed away a store house and a livery stable in Belton and one man, Jack Wright, was carried some distance down the creek below town, but escaped the flood and was saved.

In the summer of 1854 the Indians stole horses from Wilkerson Valley. Bob White, Joe Townsend, John Potter, Dave Williams and Ike Williams followed them, killing one Indian and recovering all the horses that had been stolen.

In February 1859 the Indians came and killed young Pierce and Riggs and his wife on the south side of the Cow-house near where old Uncle Jesse Scroggins once lived. They allowed the two Riggs children to go."