William H. Robinson

 

William H. Robinson, farmer and fruit-raiser, Brighton Township, was born in Conneaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio, April 6, 1832. His father, Israel Anthony Robinson, was of English descent, and his mother, nee Delia Lake, of Dutch, and probably born in New York, and they, with one or two other families, were among the very first settlers in the neighborhood of Conneaut. They reared nine children, all born in the same log house, six sons and three daughters, to the years of maturity. Their father died there about 1836, and their mother in 1840 emigrated to Aurora, Kane Co., Illinois, where she passed the remainder of her days, leaving the scenes of earth in 1873. Their children were: Henry, who died in 1869 in Sacramento; Robert, who resides in San Francisco; Henrietta, who resides in this county; Charles, died in Placerville in 1850, and Sally died in this county about 1876; William H.; whose name heads this sketch; Frank, who died in the interior of Oregon while on a mining expedition. The boyhood days of Mr. William H.  Robinson, our subject, were spent at home in Ohio and Illinois till he was about fourteen years of age, when he went to the lead mines in Wisconsin and spent two years with a surveying party in Minnesota, when the settlers were few. He was kept on the frontier so steadily in his younger days that he never saw even a railroad until 1853, when he took his first ride from Madison, Wisconsin, to New York city, on the way to California. On arriving at New York he took passage on the steamer Ohio to Panama, and came thence on the steamer John L. Stephens. Leaving New York some time in December, he landed in San Francisco in January, 1854.  First he prospected about Hangtown a year. The next spring he went upon the police force at Sacramento, which position he retained a year.  March 12, 1857, he located upon his present place at Florin. The land was perfectly barren, and he raised his first two crops without a fence, and herded the stock off the place night and day. He has made this farm his home ever since, with the exception of two years when he was deputy sheriff under E. F. White, 1869- ‘71. His farm contains 100 acres, devoted to fruit and grain. Has thirty-five acres in trees and vines, mostly the latter, and the remainder in grain. In the first place he set out 100 orange trees eleven years ago, but the frost has killed then all out except six, four of which are in bearing. Politically Mr. Robinson, as well as his father, was a Whig, and has been a Republican ever since that party was organized. He has been a delegate to every Republican county convention except one since 1871. He was married January 24, 1860, to Lydia E. Smith, daughter of Thomas M. Smith. She came with her parents to California, arriving December 1, 1854. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson have one son, Frank T., born April 8, 1866.