As a reminder to all those interested and in proximity, the 2024 Oregon Robbins Reunion will be held on Sat., July 20th, at Feyrer County Park, Picnic Area #2, just outside of Molalla, Oregon. This reunion is open to anyone related to the Robbins family would like to come and visit and share family history.
You can find more information at my blog post from last fall here. Feel free to contact me either through the blog or the email below if you have questions.
Robbins Family Research and Blog Posts
I’m quite behind in blog posts the past nine months for a wide variety of reasons. My Robbins research has been focusing on land records (particularly Breckinridge Co., Kentucky and Marion Co., Oregon) which don’t lend themselves (usually) to entertaining stories (though sometimes they do).
Breckinridge County, Kentucky, has fascinated me as the number of family members there is only surpassed by Decatur County, Indiana. Only a few of the early Robbins family members moved down to Kentucky from Indiana, but they were quite prolific, with the early heads of household being Absalom Robbins, Jr., Hardin Robbins, and Micajah Robbins Jr.
Besides the number of people to research, Breckinridge County includes some of the most interesting first names you can find in the family: Prayles, Joranda, Bourbon, Erie, Vermont, and Lafayette, and you can sometimes determine the political heroes of parents as they gave their children such names as: Zachary Taylor, George Washington, Henry Clay, Millard Fillmore, and Harrison.
Among the surnames who married into these Robbins families are: Stillwell, Ryan, Armes, Basham, Macey (or Maysey), Swink, Knott, Allen, Hampton, Hanks, Roberts, Jolly, Norton, Haynes, Dowell, Hubbard, and many more. And a number of these surnames have multiple connections to the Robbins family. Thus is a lot of research to be done in a very small amount of free time.
But I will continue to write up stories and findings as I am able, so stay with me!
Last year, prior to the 2023 Robbins Reunion in Oregon, I posted about the Adams Cemetery which is very near the reunion location. This year I thought I would post about the Robert Bird Cemetery, also important to Robbins family history, which is not far away – and, in fact, is easily accessed off of Interstate 5. While the Molalla Cemetery held Jacob and Sarah Robbins and their descendants, the Robert Bird Cemetery held Nathaniel and Nancy Robbins and many of their family.
Location of the Bird Cemetery, between Gage and Newland roads
The cemetery was located on the very eastern edge of a part of Robert and Rachel Bird’s large landholding in Clackamas County. Bird was surrounded to the north, west, and south by members of the Robbins family on their respective Donation Land Claims.
red star indicates approximate location of the Bird Cemetery
The burial of a Robbins in the cemetery that can be confirmed is that of William Franklin Robbins who died in May of 1856 after a hunting accident. I’ve quoted this reminiscence from his daughter Melissa before but it’s worth sharing again:
“But how soon happiness can be turned to sorrow for when I was but four years old Father was taken from us by death in the accidental discharge of his gun while trailing a Bear in company with his Brothers, tho so young I could always remember seeing his body carried from the forest and of being lifted up to view him for the last time as he lay in his casket. There being no horse teams in our community except Grandfathers [Nathaniel Robbins] which hitched to a wagon in which was placed the casket and in which Mother [Melvina], baby sister [Artemissa] and I also rode with the rest of the crowd walking we proceeded to the Cemetery one half mile distant and there without a Minister of God to offer a last prayer or to speak one word of comfort to the grief stricken ones his body was laid to rest and while I was too young to realize my loss yet Mother’s heart broken sobbings at that time has followed me through life.”
The next earliest burial is that of William’s youngest sister Angeline Robbins, who died in 1862 at twenty-one; then came a young son of Nathaniel Norval Robbins, Absalom Allen Robbins, in 1863. The patriarch himself, Nathaniel Robbins, drowned in December of 1863, and his grave is marked with a large gravestone. His daughter Nancy (Robbins) Barstow followed in 1872 as did bachelor son John Dow Robbins in 1873. A young son of Nathaniel Norval Robbins, Absaloma Allen Robbins, died and is buried there in 1863.
We also have a few mysteries. There are three gravestones which just say “Robbins.” These are most likely Nathaniel Spencer (“Nat”) Robbins, William Franklin’s oldest son, who died in 1895, and his first wife Sarah Evans Robbins, who died in 1880. These two graves, and the other one marked “Robbins”, are next to the gravesites (according to the cemetery map) of Evans family members, such as Sarah’s parents John and Elizabeth Evans. It’s possible that the third “Robbins” gravestone is either for Nat’s second wife Martha Rodgers (death date unknown) or for William Berry Robbins, Nat’s youngest son, who died in 1924 at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem. His death certificate simply says his body was removed to “Oregon City” which is near the Robert Bird Cemetery. Note that the website FindAGrave mistakenly gives two of these “Robbins” gravestones erroneous names. Someone simply copied a name from the cemetery map which was not that of a Robbins family member.
There are also a couple of gravestones simply marked “Barstow” but it is believed there should be about five Barstow burials there. Nancy Robbins, daughter of Nathaniel and Nancy, was married to Joseph Barstow in 1856, just a month after her brother William’s death. Nancy died in 1872 while Joseph lived until 1915. Three children died in infancy or in their teenage years: Grace Lillian (1863), Harriet Permelia (1872), and Eugene Leroy (1876). It is likely all three are buried in the Robert Bird Cemetery.
Another mystery: Melvina Myers, wife of William Franklin Robbins, was married to Robert Lavery after William’s death. Yet, she is buried as “Melvina Robbins” in the cemetery. There is no evidence of divorce. Was it an unhappy marriage? or was there bad feeling between Melvina and step-children after Robert died in 1867.
So, Nathaniel and Nancy Robbins were buried in the cemetery, as were their children William Franklin Robbins, John Dow Robbins, Nathaniel Norval Robbins, Zobeda (Robbins) Sharp, Nancy (Robbins) Barstow, and Angeline Robbins. Of the grandchildren buried in the Robert Bird Cemetery we have: Nathaniel Spencer Robbins (likely), Artemissa Ellen (Robbins) Thompson (my great-grandmother), Nathaniel Norval Barnes, William Barnes, Absalom Allen Robbins, Alfred Cotton Sharp, Oliver Perry Sharp, Samuel Franklin Sharp, Minerva (Sharp) Mayes, Nancy Melinda Sharp, Edward L. Sharp, Walter Scott Sharp, Dora Sharp (likely), Annaretta (Sharp) Priester, and Kate (Sharp) Jones, and their respective spouses and some of their children and grandchildren.
In 2019 a plaque was installed by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Tualatin Chapter, honoring Nathaniel Robbins, a member of Oregon’s Constitutional Convention, and Robert and Rachel Bird, the original owners of the land on which the cemetery is situated. You can read my blog post about that here.
And finally, here are some additional photos from the Robert Bird Cemetery:
The Herren Family Cemetery is an interesting one – for many, many years you needed to get a state prison official to escort you to the cemetery. The reason being: the property was owned by the State of Oregon and was used by the Oregon State Penitentiary’s as part of their Farm Annex.
Photo from FindAGrave, dated 2009 (not what it looks like today)
Let’s go back to the beginning. The Herren cemetery was established on the original 635-acre Donation Land Claim of John and Theodoshia (“Dosha”) (Robbins) Herren. The Herrens were first to come west, crossing the Oregon Trail in 1845, and notably took the disastrous Meek Cut-off across Central Oregon. You can read by this couple here and their trip here.
John Herren’s Donation Land Claim
The strangely oblong shaped piece of land that John and Dosha settled on was southeast of the city of Salem, and included part of a ridge – overlooking the future site of the Oregon State Penitentiary to the north and overlooking Mill Creek and the future site of Turner to the south. An early survey map even marks the Herren house along the Salem to Turner road.
The cemetery is located on the ridge above the “J. Herren” house
On the ridge above their house was the Herren cemetery. The earliest burial seems to be that of John Herren himself, who died in March of 1864. Several grandchildren, Charles C. Herren in 1868, Olevia Herren in 1874, and Nannie Welch in 1872 were also buried there. Dosha (Robbins) Herren died in 1881 and was buried beside her husband John.
Theodoshia (Robbins) Herren
John Daniel Herren
Over the years more family followed, including William Jackson Herren (1891) and his wife Nancy Evaline (1905), Elizabeth Columbia (Herren) Hastay (1881, seemingly unmarked), James R. Herren (1887), Levi M. Herren (1914), and additional grandchildren. At least one nephew of John Herren, Joseph Garrison, was also buried in the cemetery in 1867.
William Jackson Herren and wife, with John and Dosha buried behind
The Herren family is said to have sold some or all of their property to the state. I have yet to identify when this occurred but the Oregon State Reform School first operated near the cemetery beginning in 1891. After the school moved in 1929, it operated as the Farm Annex of the Oregon State Penitentiary
View of the Farm Annex in operation taken from near the cemetery location
from 1929 to 1990. Farm operations were gradually phased out at the site until it closed its doors permanently in 2021. A news article from 2022 states:
“In 1889 the State purchased the land for a reform school, the Oregon State Training School for Boys. After that relocated, the Oregon State Penitentiary began developing a farm annex in 19289, using forced prison labor to raise sheep, pigs, turkeys, rabbits, bees, and crops. By 1959 the State had expanded the farm to more than 2,089 acres. The State farm annex shut down over two decades ago, leaving much of the land unused, except for MCCI [Mill Creek Correctional Institution], a minimum-security prison, which was housed in the former reform school on a 390-acre chunk of the land. That site includes an unused cemetery from another previous owner of some of the land, the Heron (sic) family.”
Location of cemetery in relation to Farm Annex buildings
In 2023 the property was sold to Clutch Industries, under the name Herron (sic) Crossing LLC. Before the sale, when it was initially announced that the state was going to be auctioning the property a descendant of another nearby original land owner claimed there were Native American remains buried nearby also. An online article states the following:
“A state archaeologist, John Pouley, said an agreement signed by DOC [Department of Corrections] and the Oregon Historic Preservation Office outlined precautions taken to consult with historic groups and local tribes. DOC spokeswoman Betty Bernt said there was “no evidence of human remains at the archaeological site other than the [Heron (sic) family] cemetery,” in which 20 graves are still visible from 1864 to 1922. She did not say what research was done to reach that conclusion.”
Being maintained by the Oregon State Penitentiary meant that the cemetery was well cared for. The prisoners who worked outside at the Farm Annex mowed the lawn, tended the iris beds, and kept the gravestones upright and in good condition.
When in 2023 the cemetery was sold to a private owner the condition changed. While the cemetery is supposedly open to the public you must cross the company’s private property to access it. Now instead of a prison escort you need to get a company escort. In the past the cemetery was well maintained. This is what it looks like today:
The cemetery today (compare to photo above from FindAgrave in 2009)
The grass is overgrown. The iris are lost in the weed thicket. Gravestones are laying over. The writing on the markers is starting to crumble. How much longer will this cemetery even be in existence? This isn’t the first cemetery our family has had to worry about, and sadly it won’t be the last.
Robbins Roots 