Santa
Clara County
Biographies
JOSEPH BROWN
ROBINS
When J. B. Robins, the popular blacksmith and machinist of Gilroy, stepped from the gang plank of the steamer Sonora upon its arrival from Panama June 2, 1853, he found himself in a strange city much smaller than the present San Francisco, and with material assets consisting of the clothes on his back and eighty-five cents in silver. He had listened to the voice of daring rather than conservatism in planning his journey to the coast, and his experience en route was of a discouraging nature, but failed to daunt his energy or enthusiasm. The second child, and one of two now living, in a family of five sons, Mr. Robins was born in Green county, Ga., September 14, 1831, inheriting the thrifty and stable traits of an old New England ancestry. His father, John, was a native also of Green county, whither his paternal grandfather had removed from Connecticut, after a meritorious service in the Revolutionary war. At the time of his arrival Green county boasted of few settlers and fewer industries, its organization being imperfect and its prospects dubious. William Robins supplied the substantiality required for building up the section, and while tilling his land and rearing his family filled many important responsibilities in the neighborhood. He was the first sheriff of Green county, in time adding to his possessions, and becoming an extensive planter and slave holder. Following in his business footsteps, his son, John, also became a power in Green county, adding to his inherited lands until he, too, was one of the largest tax payers in his neighborhood. He married Elizabeth Tailey, a native of South Carolina, and a member of an old southern family. The mother died at the age of eighty-three, and the father when eighty-six years of age.
The early subscription schools of Green county supplied the first book knowledge mastered by J. B. Robins, and he afterward attended Greenboro Academy for a year, preparatory to entering college. Changing his mind because of the alluring prospects offered in the west, he went to Jefferson county, Tex., in 1852, and after six months embarked on a steamer bound for Aspinwall. Two days before arriving there he was taken ill. His companion placed him on the back of a mule and crossed the Isthmus with him, and afterward cared for him during his three months of sickness in the city of Panama. When he arrived in San Francisco he weighed ninety-six pounds, although when he left New York he weighed one hundred and fifty-two pounds. His money gone, and his health shattered, he succeeded in borrowing $50 from a friend, and with it paid his way to the mines of Amador county, where he mined and prospected, and in the open air gained the strength needful for the career which he had mapped out. For a time he mined in Tuolumne county, and in 1856 went to Portland, Ore., where he engaged in ranching near Hillsboro for a couple of years. In Florence and Boise City, Idaho, he mined and prospected for a time, and eventually went to Nevada City, where he bought a herd of wild cattle. The cattle objected to the restraints of civilization and took to their native heaths, leaving their former owner considerably wiser in experience, but depleted in finances. In this extremity Mr. Robins engaged in the blacksmith trade at Golden for a couple of years, and then returned to California, renting a ranch in Monterey county, where he made a success of general farming and stock-raising. Soon afterward he married Sarah Ann Shepherd, who was born in Alabama, and came to the west with her father, Lemuel Shepherd, about 1854.
In 1871 Mr. Robins settled on a ranch of one hundred and sixty acres near the present site of Oxnard, Ventura county, and there engaged in raising navy beans, probably the first to raise this delectable article of diet for the western markets. His farm proved productive and pleasant, and he remained on it until 1891, when he sold his land for $145 an acre, and enormous increase over the original price. Locating in Gilroy, he rested from his labors for two years, and in 1893 bought his present machine shop, where he has since conducted blacksmithing and general repairing. His place of business is 87x140 feet ground dimensions, two stories in height, the ground floor being used for blacksmithing and machine repairing, and the second floor for painting. His shop is supplied with a twenty-two horse power steam engine and the equipment in general is modern, permitting of all kinds of repair and machine work. Latterly Mr. Robins’ son, John E., has managed the business, he being a natural mechanic, and under his father’s able instruction has become a finished workman. Besides John E., who is the second of the children, and the oldest son, there was Lizzie, Mrs. Fulton, of Ventura county, now deceased; Ella, Mrs. Woodruff, of San Francisco; and Walter, in business with his father. Mr. Robins is a public spirited and well-informed man, a master mechanic and able business man, and an honor to the community which materially profits by his energy and resource. He is allied with the Master Masons, and in politics is a Democrat.
Transcribed
By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History of the State of California &
Biographical Record of Coast Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A.
M., Pages 718-721. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2015 Cecelia M. Setty.