The Benjamin Robbins Family Story
by Lanny A.
Robbins
(Great Grandson of
Benjamin Jackson Robbins)
October 5,
2004
Benjamin Robbins
(born 1786) and his first wife Sarah Bailey were natives ofVermont as described in
the obituary of their first son, Archibald. They lived in Ovid (now Lodi), Seneca
Co. NY in 1812 when their son Archibald Robbins was born and also in 1815 when
their daughter Elizabeth (Betsy) Robbins was born. Benjamin and Sarah Robbins lived in
Jersey Township in the vicinity of Lake Lamoka, Steuben County (now Tyrone Twp.
Schuyler County) NY in 1820 when their second son Caleb Robbins
was born and when the New York census was recorded in 1820 and 1825. In 1825 they lived on 14 acres of
improved land with 2 cattle, 5 hogs and produced 24 yards of linen, cotton,
clothes, etc.
Then I think Benjamin's
first wife Sarah died about 1826 and Benjamin married his second wife Mary
(Maria) about 1828. Benjamin
Robbins and family were on the 1830 census record for Jersey in Steuben County NY and
lived there when Nancy Robbins was born in 1833 and again when the 1835
New York state
census was recorded. In 1835 they
lived on 30 acres of improved land and owned 1 horse, 5 cattle, 9 sheep and 5
hogs. I think that Benjamin and
Mary Robbins took Benjamin's teenage son, Caleb, plus their little toddler,
Nancy, along with their belongings in a wagon and went over to Olean NY and got
on a flatboat with several other families and rafted down the Allegheny River
through Pittsburgh PA and on down the Ohio River through Cincinnati, Ohio, to
Madison, Indiana, during the spring flood of 1836. They settled in Jennings County, Indiana where Charles Robbins was born October
25, 1836. Benjamin Robbins bought
land on June 27, 1837, just south and east of the Cana cemetery in Marion Township. Benjamin and Mary Robbins joined the
Coffee Creek Baptist Church at Paris Crossing,
Indiana, in
July of 1837. Their son Aaron
Robbins was born July 8, 1837. But,
then Benjamin’s second wife, Mary, died in November of
1838.
On June 16, 1839, Benjamin
Robbins married a third time to a 32 year old widow lady, Susannah
Chaney/Burton, who had been a member of the Coffee Creek
Baptist Church in Paris Crossing since May of 1835. She had five children from her first
husband, William T. Burton, before he died in Bartholomew County, Indiana in 1834 when Susannah was 27 years
old. Benjamin and Susannah Robbins
bought two adjacent 40 acre parcels by Paris Crossing about one half mile south of the
old Coffee Creek cemetery on January 26, 1844, and probably lived there when
their daughter, Emily Robbins, was born as well as when their son, Benjamin
Jackson Robbins, was born on May 30, 1845.
The combined families of Benjamin and Susannah Robbins appeared on the
September 11, 1850, census for Montgomery Township, Jennings
County, Indiana.
September 11, 1850, census for Montgomery Twp, Jennings County Indiana
Name
Age Occupation Birthplace
Benj Rob[b]ins
64 farmer
b. NY
Susanna [Chaney/Burton/Robbins] 43
b. KY
Susanna [Burton]
22
b. KY
Amos [Burton]
21 farmer
b. KY
Sally A. [Burton]
15
b. IN [Bartholomew Co.IN]
Nancy [Robbins]
17
b. IN [Steuben Co. NY]
Charles [Robbins]
14
b. IN [Cana
IN]
Aaron [Robbins]
13
b. IN [Cana
IN]
Emily [Robbins]
6
b. IN [Paris Crossing IN]
Jackson [Robbins]
4
b. IN [Paris Crossing
IN]
Sally, Charles and Aaron attended school in
1850.
Allen Hill
19 farmer
b. IN
Salena Hill
21
b. IN
Amos Burton
20
b. KY
[Comments in brackets added by Lanny A. Robbins, actual abbreviation
for Indiana
was Ia in the census record]
Susannah Chaney
Burton/Robbins died in September of 1852 when she was 45 years old. Two of the Burton children, John and
Rebecca, and their spouses sold Susannah’s 40 acres on May 3, 1854. In June of 1854 Benjamin Robbins was
excluded from the membership roll of the Coffee Creek
Baptist Church in Paris
Crossing, Indiana.
Benjamin was 68 years old and may have moved into the home of his son
Caleb and attended another
church. Caleb was a member of the
First Marion Baptist Church about 2 miles north of Cana and 5 miles west of Commiskey.
In 1855 the Burton and Robbins children decided to move out west to
Kansas. The oldest girl, Susannah Burton, was dismissed by letter of transfer from the
membership roll of the Coffee Creek Baptist Church in Paris Crossing, Indiana, in August of 1855. Shortly after leaving Indiana they were advised not to go to Kansas because it was a
border state between the North and the South. So, they would have gone to Nebraska then but the youngest Burton girl, Sally, was very frail and became quite ill so
they stopped in Bloomfield,
Iowa, to take care of her. Sally died in Iowa.
On August 11, 1856,
Benjamin Robbins sold his 40 acres at Paris
Crossing, Indiana.
At a Coffee
Creek Baptist Church business meeting on the
3rd Saturday in June of 1857 Benjamin Robbins was restored to the
church membership roll and then dismissed by letter of transfer at the same
meeting. Benjamin may have died at
that time and wished to be buried by Susannah at the Coffee Creek Baptist
Church cemetery. A short biography of Aaron Robbins
reported that his father died in Indiana at the age of
70.
The older boys in the
Burton-Robbins family worked at a brick factory in Bloomfield, Iowa, where they knew the Headrick
family. Charles Robbins married
Nancy A. Pollard in 1856, Amos Chaney Burton married Lavina Headrick in 1858,
Aaron Robbins married Frances Welch in 1861 and Emily Robbins married Mortan C.
Floyd in 1864 while they all lived in Davis County
Iowa. Benjamin Jackson Robbins lived in the
home of Amos and Lavina Burton.
During 1863 to 1865 all of the families, except Emily’s moved out near
Ashland (now Saunders County) in the Nebraska Territory. Nebraska became a state in 1867. Amos Burton and his family built a sod
house at Waverly, Nebraska (now Lancaster County). Emily may have died in Davis County
Iowa about
1868. In 1874 Benjamin Jackson
Robbins married Amelia Beyer and this marriage was the first one recorded after
the Saunders County courthouse location was moved from Ashland to Wahoo, Nebraska.
Thanks
to Lanny Robbins for the
contribution!
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