On Saturday, July 20th, 2024, by popular demand, there will be another Robbins Reunion in Oregon. Meeting again at Feyrer County Park just outside of Molalla, Oregon, this reunion is open to anyone related to the Robbins family who would like to come and visit and share family history.
This past summer’s very successful reunion was meant to be a “one-off”, a chance to report on the 2022 bicentennial reunion in Decatur County, Indiana, but the attendees all said they’d like to resume the former annual Oregon reunions, so here we go!
The park is located about 3 miles east of Molalla on S. Feyrer Park Road. From downtown Molalla take E. Main Street to E. Mathias Road, travel south on that road a couple of blocks, and then turn east on S. Feyrer. That road takes you to the park. Picnic #2 is once again where the Robbins family will be gathering. Be aware that there is an $8 parking fee. Molalla is about 15 miles east of Interstate-5 at Woodburn or 16 miles south of 99E at Oregon City.
Even if you cannot come to this reunion, it would help if anyone reading this blog could pass along the word to anyone they think might be interested. Getting word out is the key to a successful reunion.
I plan to have limited updates about the reunion in this blog; there will be a Facebook event page for anyone who would like to follow the reunion there (you can always “friend” me for an invite); and I have created an email mailing list. If you would like to be included on the email list be sure to let me know by sending a message to: oregonrobbinsreunion@gmail.com
At last summer’s Robbins reunion cousin Sherrill Beck (a Jacob Robbins descendant) handed me an envelope containing some old calling cards. I didn’t have time to really study them until recently. What is interesting is that the cards all come from the Theodoshia (Robbins) Herren branch of the family – Theodoshia being a first-cousin to Sherrill’s Jacob. Obviously there were either visitations back and forth between the younger members of the family or they included them in letters they wrote each other. The Herrens and the Jacob Robbins family had a close relationship: I’ve previously written of William J. Herrens’ unsuccessful attempt to entice his cousin Jacob in accompanying him in a return visit to Decatur County, Indiana, in 1877.
According to a Wikipedia article on visiting or calling cards, by the 19th century, men and women needed personalized cars to maintain their social status. Cards were left at homes, sent to individuals, or exchanged in person for various social purposes. They became an indispensable tool of etiquette.
Another website quoted an etiquette book from 1882: “Callers should always be provided with cards. A gentleman should carry them loose in a convenient pocket; but a lady may use a card case. No matter how many members of the family you call upon, you send in but one card. Where servants are not kept, and you are met at the door by the lady herself, of course there is no use for a card. If you call upon a friend who has a visitor, send in but one card; but if they are not at home, leave a card for each. Calls of pure ceremony are sometimes made by simply handing in a card.”
The etiquette on the Oregon frontier and among family members may have been less formalized as I’m not sure close relatives needed to follow the formality of the very detailed social rules and conventions. But I’m sure it was a good way for young people, in particular, to share their calling “availability” to others or to simply exchange cards with each other, either in person or by mail.
What’s particularly interesting about these calling cards is that I can date most of them to the early 1880s because we know Docia (Robbins) Herren died in 1881, several of the cards belonged to three siblings who died of diphtheria in June of 1883, and Ida Herren was married in 1884.
Here is a list of the relatives with calling cards.
Mrs. Docia W. Herren (1804-1881)
George L. Herren (1864-1883)
Lizzie E. Herren (1868-1883) (3 cards)
Sarah Herren (1866-1883)
Lottie E. Herren (1854-1896) (2 cards)
John C. Herren (1828-1898)
Mrs. Elizabeth Herren (1833-1910)
Thomas L. Herren (1862-1922)
Ida A. Herren (1864-1936) (married Ralph Morris in 1884)
And here is a simplified family tree showing the relationships of those who have calling cards (names in bold):
Besides the cards shown above here are the rest of these Herren family artifacts from the early 1880s:
The 2023 Oregon Robbins Reunion was a resounding success! We had between 50 and 60 attendees, about the same as last year’s reunion in Decatur County, Indiana. There were representatives from several Oregon pioneer ancestors: Nathaniel and Nancy Robbins, John and Theodoshia (Robbins) Herren, John Hudson Robbins, and Jacob and Sarah (Spilman) Robbins. There were also several other long-time Robbins family researchers who connect much further back through our pre-Indiana ancestors, as well as others who have Robbins ancestors but weren’t sure if they were connected to our specific family or not (it’s hard to say – our ancestors being on this continent for four hundred years – there are a lot of branches of the Robbins family!).
The four Oregon cousins who attended last year’s reunion in Indiana were all present: Sherrill, Nancy, Kathy, and myself.
Many of us at this reunion hadn’t seen each other since the Oregon reunions back in the 1990s or early 2000s so it was nice to get reacquainted. There were several actual Robbins’s in attendance too: James (“Jim”) DeSpain Robbins, a descendant of Jacob through son Harvey, and John Robbins and family, descendants of Jacob through son Levi.
I had originally planned this reunion as a one-off, a follow-up to last year’s bicentennial family reunion in Indiana, but the folks who came to this reunion want to keep it going, so we will plan for a 2024 reunion! What’s good about that is if you weren’t able to come to this reunion, you can always come next year, or the year after (?). And anybody interested in Robbins family history are welcome.
Below are several photos, a couple by me and a couple by cousin Brenda Pudwill.
Ella Elmira (or Elmyra) Robbins was born in 1871 in Decatur County, Indiana, a daughter of James Gilman and Elmira (Stout) Robbins. She was married to the Rev. John Fielding Huckleberry in 1893 and they had five children: Evermont Robbins, William Carey, Mary Elmyra, Helen Rebecca, and Florence Naomi.
The Huckleberrys moved to Oregon in about 1921 (another interesting Decatur County to Oregon connection), though daughters Mary Elmyra (who had married George Vandiver) and Helen Rebecca seemed to have remained in Indiana.
The Rev. John Fielding Huckleberry, born in 1864, had graduated from Franklin College in Franklin, Johnson County, Indiana. He served five years as pastor of the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Decatur County and well as other pastorates in Indiana before moving to Oregon. The Rev. Huckleberry died in McMinnville, Oregon, in 1950. At the time his wife was staying with their daughter Mary Vandiver back in Indiana. She flew out to be with him at the time of his death. Ella lived only five more years, dying in 1955, in Oregon.
Two of their children who came to Oregon, William Carey Huckleberry and Florence Naomi Huckleberry, appear to have never married. They died in 1967 and 1972, respectively.
The older son, Evermont Robbins Huckleberry, however, led a storied life that he wrote about in his book The Adventures of Dr. Huckleberry, Tillamook County, Oregon. Dr. E. R. Huckleberry received his MD from Rush Medical College in Chicago and then served an internship at Los Angeles County Hospital. He spent the next thirty years practicing medicine in Tillamook County on the Oregon Coast, McMinnville, and Umatilla, Oregon. After a stint in Texas, he moved to Utah where he retired as a physician. Dr. Huckleberry died in 1996 in Salt Lake City at the age of 102!
Tillamook County established the Tillamook County Huckleberry Health Fair in his honor, which ran annually from 1983 to 2017. The fair was an event to help local residents understand their health resources, as well as providing needed low-cost screenings and other services.
Dr. Huckleberry, in his very long life, was also a military veteran, missionary, teacher, author, and family man. At the time of his death Dr. Huckleberry had three great-great-grandchildren. Another long lived Robbins family member!
There have been many years of Robbins and allied family reunions in Oregon. Originally they were large reunions, with the original Oregon Trail pioneers in attendance, but as families grew and married into other families and moved away from the home place, over time the reunions sometimes fractured into separate parts or died way altogether.
While most families hold reunions at some point, the Oregon reunions might have originally been driven by the shared experience of coming across the Oregon Trail and an early organization that helped bring pioneers together.
The Oregon Pioneer Association was established in 1867, with one of the leading founders being William Jackson Herren, son of Theodoshia (Robbins) Herren. He was elected president of the organization in 1877, the same year he returned to Decatur County, Indiana, to visit his Robbins cousins that he hadn’t seen in decades.
The Association was made up of members who had come to Oregon prior to January 1, 1854, and each year they held meetings of members, many of whom were members of the Robbins and Herren families. As the original pioneers died out, the organization dwindled, eventually being subsumed into the Sons and Daughters of Oregon Pioneers. The Oregon Pioneer Associations’ annually published Transactions listed those members and other pioneers who had passed away over the years.
By the time the pioneer group was dwindling away around the turn of the last century, family reunions started being held. Original pioneers were dying off, families were spreading out, many moving off the farm to look for jobs in urban areas both near and far. For the Robbins family, 1922 was the banner year, with large reunions in Decatur County, Indiana, and in Oregon. As families grew and locations changed, the various reunion groups separated, then rejoined, then died away, only to be replaced by something new.
I have collected articles over the years about some of these reunions and I include a few of them here.
I started attending Robbins reunions in 1977, and they continued on until the early 2000s before petering out. In those years the reunions were held in Camas, Washington; Champoeg State Park; Willamette Mission State Park; and finally Silver Falls State Park. The 2023 Robbins Reunion is being held at Feyrer Park in Molalla, a long-time location of reunions of the Jacob Robbins family. For more information on the upcoming reunion click on the 2023 Oregon Robbins Reunion above.
About half way between the city of Molalla and Feyrer Park where the 2023 Robbins Reunion will be held, is Adams Cemetery Road, which runs past some farms and up a hill to the large Adams Cemetery. That cemetery is where Jacob and Sarah (Spilman) Robbins and many of their descendants rest.
Being only a 5-minute drive from Feyrer Park it would make a great stop, coming or going, to the reunion.
According to the Oregon Historic Sites Database (http://heritagedata.prd.state.or.us/historic/) the Adams Cemetery was established in 1865 and Sarah (Spilman) Robbins was said to be the first person buried there. From family stories we know that Jacob moved the bodies of his young sons who died in 1852 at the end of the Oregon Trail to the Adams Cemetery once it was established and their graves are marked today. The property was deeded to the Adams Cemetery Association in 1921 by William Adams and Lloyd Shaver. Other portions of the property was deeded to the Association in 1938 by Alfred Shaver (the Shavers were Robbins descendants).
Among the children of Jacob and Sarah in the Adams Cemetery are: Harvey Robbins (1833-1925), Levi Robbins (1835-1921), Thomas Robbins (1836-1913), Martin Robbins (1838-1921), Oliver Robbins (1840-1933), Theodore Robbins (1844-1952), and Aaron Robbins (1847-1852).
To find the graves of Jacob and Sarah and some of the older Robbins burials, enter the cemetery through the gate, drive straight ahead towards the flag pole, then turn right and drive through the grove of trees. Many of the oldest family graves are on the east side of the road, though there are many other relations throughout the cemetery. Here is rough map from FindAGrave:
And here are several photos from the Adams Cemetery:
Jacob Robbins (1809-1896)Sarah (Spilman) Robbins (1812-1865)Levi, son of Jacob and Sarah RobbinsJacob and Sarah Robbins with their two sons who died at the end of the Oregon Trail in 1852; son Martin Robbins in background
Of all the grandchildren of Jacob and Mary Robbins of Kentucky, the third generation, the one individual who seems to have had the most photographs taken, is Jacob Robbins (1809-1896). This was the Jacob who married Sarah Spilman and emigrated with his family to Oregon in 1852 along with his cousin Nathaniel Robbins and his family.
That multiple photographs of Jacob were taken is a testament to his long life as he lived until 1896, long after photography became common place. His wife Sarah, on the other hand, died in 1865 and only one known photograph of her exists, as also occurs with his cousin Nathaniel Robbins, who died in 1863.
Here is a summary of the six photos or drawings I have of Jacob and Sarah Robbins and who originally shared the photos with me (all three contributors have since passed on).
Jacob and Sarah (Spilman) Robbins (Margaret Davis, Yakima, WA)
Jacob Robbins (Margaret Davis, Yakima, WA)
Jacob Robbins (Patrick Masterson, Port Orford, OR)
Jacob Robbins (Lloyd Robbins, Vancouver, WA)
Jacob Robbins (Lloyd Robbins, Vancouver, WA)
Jacob Robbins (Patrick Masterson, Port Orford, WA)
If anyone has additional photos of Jacob and Sarah Robbins, or of anyone from that generation – children of William Sr., Absalom, James, Jacob Jr., Mary Chastain, Martha Chastain, and Margaret Robbins, I’m always happy to get a scanned copy!
As I do periodically, I recently returned to a family group that I had not looked at in some time to see if I could find any new information. In this case I looked at Richard N. Robbins, a son of Stephen Robbins (c1831-1874), in turn a son of Micajah Robbins, all of Decatur County, Indiana.
According to loose family history notes, coming down from W. F. Robbins, Marvin Robbins Davis, and others, Stephen Robbins and wife Mary Jane Scripture lived in the community known as Scripture Bridge along Sand Creek. From those notes and from census records I knew that Stephen and Mary Jane Robbins had three children: sons Richard and Francis and daughter Gloria (Lora) Ann (Robbins) Monroe. Of these three families, other than one marriage record for Richard, it was only Gloria for whom I had any kind of information and had identified descendants.
The above history notes provided only this when it came to eldest son Richard N. Robbins:
I did have the marriage record for Richard and Melissa E. Luckey from 1877:
After that, other than the 1880 census, I had been unable to find them in any other records. And then, when I took a fresh look at some of Ancestry’s leaf hints for Richard last month these were the two that made me sit up and take notice:
Wow. Those opened up a whole new avenue (and geographic area) of research. Other than Melissa E. Luckey being called Emmaline E. Luckey, I knew I had two children of Richard and Melissa (aka Malissa, Emmaline, Elizabeth, etc.). Building on those hints about two children of the couple I was able to answer some questions, though others remained.
The most amazing discovery was that Melissa and her two children ended up in a wide-spot in the road known as Eddyville, about an hour north of me, just inland from the Oregon coast. The biggest question, still unresolved, is why did this family move from Decatur County, Indiana, to Eddyville, Oregon, of all places?
Eddyville – between Newport and Corvallis, Oregon
This is what I now know: Richard and Melissa had two children: Estella A. and LeRoy (“Roy”) Finley Robbins, both born in Decatur County, Indiana. Estella Robbins was married to Harvey Bowler Huntington in 1898 in Lincoln County, Oregon (the county in which Eddyville is located). Also, about 1898, Melissa (Luckey) Robbins married Moran Weltin. Finally, in 1909, LeRoy Finley Robbins was married to Mamie Wakefield.
I was able to find occasional mentions of the Robbins, Weltins, and Wakefields, in the local newspaper, of which these articles are an example.
Identifying Estella and LeRoy allowed me to follow their lives and work their family lines down to the present day. Estella (Robbins) Huntington died in 1960 in Tacoma, Washington, her husband Harvey having died in 1947. Their oldest child, Agnes Melissa, was born in Eddyville while the rest of their children (Lola Myrtle, Herbert Harvey, and Clyde Samuel) were born in Portland. There are quite a few descendants of this family.
LeRoy Finley Robbins died in Lincoln County (probably Eddyville) in 1949, his wife Mamie having predeceased him in 1938. The couple had a daughter Myrtle Ruth who married and had one child. LeRoy and Mamie also appear to have had an unnamed baby for whom there is a gravestone in the cemetery. There are only a couple of descendants of LeRoy.
Melissa (Luckey) (Robbins) Weltin, Richard N. Robbins’ wife, died in 1946, while her second husband Moran Weltin died in 1926.
The Weltins, along with LeRoy Finley Robbins and his wife, are buried in the Eddyville Cemetery. Being only about 90-minutes away, it was time for a road trip! The small cemetery is up a steep drive, beginning right next to a house, barely off Highway 20. Through the gate and up the hill I found Melissa and her Oregon family.
The question is: what happened to Richard N. Robbins? We have no records between the birth of LeRoy in Decatur County, Indiana, 1883, and the marriages of Melissa and Estella in Eddyville, Oregon in 1898. Or do we? There is a record of a Richard N. Robbins marrying in Kentucky in 1893 (that would jibe with the history of W. F. Robbins, et al, mentioned above), but I don’t know if it is the same man. Is it possible that Richard and Melissa were divorced? Does that explain why Melissa and her two children went from Indiana to Oregon? and why there is no mention of their father in the records of Estella and LeRoy? But why Eddyville? I have found no connection in either family with that small settlement.
Perhaps one day these questions will be answered.
[Jacob Robbins-Absalom Robbins-Micajah Robbins-Stephen Robbins-Richard N. Robbins]
There are a number of families that married into the Robbins line several times. One of those was the Deweese family.
There are three main connections between the Deweeses and the Robbins of which I am aware: Mary Margaret Deweese married John Robbins, Beverly Deweese married Mary Helen Robbins, and Jacob Deweese married Mary Ellen (“Polly”) Robbins. Note: the names Mary Helen, Mary Ellen, Mary, and Polly have been used for these two women almost interchangeably in records though I refer to Beverly’s wife as Mary and Jacob’s wife as Polly.
Also, I am going to discuss the two male Deweese families here, only briefly touching on Mary Margaret’s family. I have not done research on the ancestry of the Deweese family and have relied on others work that has been shared with me in the past or is currently online, primarily Ancestry’s trees that look most well documented. Also be aware research is still ongoing.
The proposed relationship outline is as follows:
Mary Margaret Deweese
Mary Margaret Deweese married John Robbins in 1826 in Decatur County, Indiana. John was the son of James and Hannah (Jarrett) Robbins of nearby Jennings County. The couple had five children that I’m aware of: James Deweese Robbins, Isaiah Wilson Robbins, Mary Robbins, Hannah Robbins, and William Riley Robbins. They lived in a variety of locations in Indiana, including Jennings, Clinton, and Fulton counties. I will not add more here, as this post will focus on the two male Deweese connections.
Beverly Deweese
Beverly Deweese, born about 1813 reportedly in Pendleton Co., Kentucky, was married to Mary Helen Robbins in 1833 in Decatur County, Indiana, by Justice of the Peace, Nathaniel Robbins. Polly was the daughter of Micajah Robbins, Nathaniel’s wife Nancy’s eldest brother.
They owned 80 acres in Decatur County, received from federal land patents in 1837 and 1843, generally between Letts and Gaynorsville. About 1856 the Deweeses left Indiana and moved to Atchison County, Kansas, purchasing 160 acres of land in 1858 about seven miles west of the city of Atchison (it wasn’t officially patented until 1863 after Beverly’s death). While Beverly died in 1862, Mary lived here until her death in 1905.
Beverly and Mary Deweese had ten children: Emily, Hardin, Rhoda, Nancy, John, Martha, Benjamin, Daniel, Lewis, and Hiram – many names which appear in Robbins family groups close to Mary.
Son John H. Deweese enlisted in Company D of the 7th Kansas Cavalry (Volunteers) in November of 1861 for three years. Sadly he died of measles only two months later in January of 1862. However, his death resulted in a pension application by his mother which provides a small snapshot into the lives of this Kansas family.
Mary Helen (Robbins) Deweese – “mark” on pension application
Among the information provided in the pension papers include that Beverly Deweese had been an invalid for five years prior to his death (so from about 1857 to 1862), and totally disabled since 1860 to his death. Oldest son Hardin was also an invalid and he suffered from epilepsy. Sadly, in the 1880 census 43-year-old Hardin, living at home, is listed as “insane”, a not-uncommon view of epileptics at the time.
The quarter section of land they owned (160 acres, being the SW¼ of Sec. 4 of Township 5 South, Range 19 East) was described as being “rough and unimproved” with only a small part being under cultivation. The crops all across Kansas were said to be a failure in 1860 (reported in the pension application). The farm was located about three miles east of the tiny hamlet of Huron, which wasn’t established until 1882.
The Deweese quarter section was the area between the two marked corners – the small community of Huron is to the left
Young John Deweese hired out by day or month to neighbors to help support his parents and siblings from the age of 15 until his enlistment (he was only 18 or 20 at the time of enlistment and death). He was the family’s sole source of support. Upon his death, with an invalid husband (soon to follow him to the grave), an invalid son, and other, mostly younger, children, Mary had to run the farm, which resulted in approximately $50 income each year. Tax assessments by the county placed the value of the land anywhere from $550 to $920 in the years 1862 to 1883, when Mary filed her application for a pension.
John was buried in the Old Huron Cemetery but his mother Mary was buried in the Anderson Cemetery, located just across the county line to the north in Doniphan County. We don’t know where Beverly was buried – Old Huron? or Anderson?
Several of the children remained in Kansas for the rest of their lives, including Emily (who was married to Thomas Stone), Daniel, and Lewis Franklin (“Frank”). Frank was an interesting case as he traveled back to Breckinridge County, Kentucky, where many of his Robbins cousins were living, to marry one of them, Mary Elizabeth Robbins (daughter of Micajah Robbins Jr.), in 1888. Two of Beverly and Mary’s children, Rhoda (who married Matthew Dorland) and Benjamin (who seems to have never married), ended up in Burlington, Skagit County, Washington. What happened to several of the children remains unknown: did Nancy or Martha marry? Did Hiram survive to adulthood and marry? Hopefully further research will give us answers.
Jacob Frederick Deweese
Jacob Deweese was born in 1819 in Grant County, Kentucky, and married Mary Ellen (“Polly”) Robbins in 1845 in Decatur County, Indiana, by Justice of the Peace, Nathaniel Robbins, Mary Ellen’s uncle. Mary was the daughter of Nathaniel’s older brother, Marmaduke (see previous relationship chart).
This Deweese family lived in Decatur County, Indiana, until about 1866, when a deed is recorded for 180 acres of land in Clay County, Illinois. They weren’t the only family members living in Clay County, as Polly’s sister Docia (Robbins) Travis had also moved there after Polly did. The Deweeses lived in Illinois into the 1870s (until 1875 according to one of the children’s obituary) when they packed up and moved to Marion County, Kansas.
Jacob and Polly had at least eight children: William, Abraham (“Abram” or “Abe”), Gerusia (or Jerusia or Jenny or Ellen?), Hortensia, Cyrus Holman, Laura, Mary Jane, and Jacob Jr. One of the daughters, listed as Ellen, remained in Illinois where she married Franklin Henthorn. Age-wise I believe it was probably Gerusia or Hortensia – both are listed in the 1850 and 1860 censuses in the Deweese family and both would have been old enough to marry in 1871 – and both might have wanted a simpler name like Ellen. The only other unaccounted for daughter, Laura, would have been too young to marry in that year.
Back in the early 1980s I was given a copy of the research done by Robbins researchers Margaret Davis of Yakima, Washington, and Mary Kate Horner, of Kokomo, Indiana. The two had collaborated for many years but by the time I started researching genealogy they had pretty much moved on to other things. I was lucky to visit both of them several times over the years and they were pleased that I was continuing with their foundational research. Mary Kate was also a descendant of Marmaduke Robbins so she had more access to other descendants and family records down that line of the family. Included in the records of Davis and Horner were two transcribed letters written by Jacob and Polly to two of her siblings. I do not know if the originals have survived, but I’ll include some excerpts here, with the exact spelling as was transcribed but with some fuller names in brackets. As the originals are unavailable to me I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the transcription.
Letter from Jacob Deweese and family to Permelia (Robbins) Hopkins – Polly’s sister
Peabody, Marion County, Kansas
Jan 21, 1881
“My dear ould sister it is with pleasure that I take this opertunity to answere your welcom letter that you give me great counfor to her from you but was sorry to her that William [probably son William M. Hopkins] was cripled but I hop he can make a living at and brother Founts boy [Dan Robbins, the two women’s nephew] has got his arms shot off and he is a criple and we have good health and that is a great blessing for us at this time……yo sister Polly Ellen is stout and harty and she hant any help now a twal the girls is all married and we have two children single with us now that is Holman and Jacob and Ellen lives in Illanoys and the last time I heard from her she had 3 children and Abram lives in Kansas and he has two children and Viney she has one child and the rest haven’t got any yet and sister Dotia [Travis] lives in Illanoys, Clay County….and Caroline [Robbins Hopkins] post office is Miami County New Lancaster Kansas…I want you to excuse me for my bad writing for I cant see any more without specks…”
Letter from Jacob Deweese and family to William C. Robbins – Polly’s brother
Peabody, Marion County, Kansas
December 14, 1881
“Mr. W. C. Robbins
It is with pleasure that I take this opertunity to drop you a fu lions to inquire after you for I haven’t heard a word from you since you left my house….we hav plenty of wheat to do us and we hav corn nuff to get along with and hope that you hav the same so William I have bin very uneasy about you and have bin wating with patience to here from you…I wa[n]t you to give me history of your travil and evry thing in general and how long was away from home and whether you ever low to come to Kansas…”
“…we hav five head of milk cows and four head of calves and 18 head of hogs…Cyrus has got 3 good horses and I hav two horses so William we are plowing and discing for a crop and we havt had any cold weather her yet and wheat looks well and I have got 47 acres of wheat this year so William I will have to close my bad writing and spelling. This and from Jacob Deweese and Polly E. Deweese and family to William C. Robbins and family writ in haste.”
All of the children of Marmaduke Robbins seem to have dispersed widely over the years. At the time of writing these letters Polly was in Kansas (Marion County), sister Caroline (Robbins) Hopkins was also in Kansas (Miami County); sister Docia (Robbins) Travis was in Clay County, Illinois; brother William Corydon Robbins was in Benton County, Iowa; sister Permelia (Robbins) Hopkins was in Wapello County, Iowa; while brothers Jacob F. and Fountain Robbins were back in Decatur County, Indiana.
And Jacob and Polly didn’t stay in Kansas either. Sometime in the 1890s they made the move to the Pacific Northwest – settling near the town of Palouse in the very southeastern corner of Washington State. At least three of the Deweese children also moved to Washington: Abraham, Mary Jane, and Jacob Jr.
And so it was that Polly passed away near Palouse in 1899 and Jacob in 1901. Both are buried in the Eden Cemetery, surrounded by the rolling Palouse wheat fields on all sides. Note that Polly’s gravestone indicates her name as “P. E. Deweese” – Polly Ellen Deweese.
Jacob and Polly Deweese markerEden Cemetery in the PalousePolly ( Robbins) Deweese gravestone
There will be a Robbins Reunion on July 22nd, 2023, at Feyrer County Park just outside of Molalla, Oregon. This is a one-off event, not part of a resumption of the previous yearly reunions, but will give those of us who attended the bicentennial reunion in Decatur County, Indiana, last year a chance to report on that reunion and allow Northwest family members – as well as any others who happen to be in the area – to come and visit and share family history.
Feyrer Park was the location of many of the Jacob Robbins descendants reunions over the years. Jacob and Sarah (Spilman) Robbins, Oregon Trail pioneers of 1852, settled in Molalla, as did some of their children and further descendants. It will be nice to return for a brief visit to the community where so many of our ancestors and relatives lived.
2023 Robbins Reunion site east of Molalla, Oregon
The park is located about 3 miles east of Molalla on S. Feyrer Park Road. From downtown Molalla take E. Main Street to E. Mathias Road, travel south on that road a couple of blocks, and then turn left, east, on S. Feyrer. That road takes you to the park. Picnic area #2 is where the reunion will be held. Be aware that there is an $8 parking fee.
Molalla is about 15 miles east of I-5 at Woodburn or 16 miles south of 99E at Oregon City.
1922 Oregon Robbins Reunion
Molalla is also the site of the Adams Cemetery, where Jacob and Sarah, many of their children, and other relatives are buried. Located between Molalla and Feyrer Park it will make an easy side trip. From S. Feyrer Park Road, almost halfway between Molalla and the park, turn right, south, on S. Adams Cemetery Road and follow that road south to the cemetery. I’ll have a post about Adams Cemetery and some of the prominent family burials there in the future.
For more information about the reunion feel free to email me at “mittge @ yahoo.com” or contact me through the comments on this blog.
Robbins Roots 