Robinson, Ralph

ROBSINSON, BUSHFIELD, HAMILTON

Posted By: Volunteer Transcriber
Date: 8/15/2009 at 07:46:31

Ralph Robinson, the able editor of the Newton Journal, was born in Washington County, Pa., September 1830. But little information is before the writer regarding the early history of the Robinson family. We learn, however, that they originated in the North of Ireland and were all Protestants, and by occupation, small farmers and weavers. The paternal great-grandfather was quite a leader in his community, and was at one time Master of the Grand Lodge of the Orangemen of Ireland.

The family was numbered among the early Methodists of Ireland, and John Wesley, when in the neighborhood, visited our subject's grandfather, to whom he wrote a number of letters. Large families have always been characteristic of the Robinsons. In his great-grandfather's family there were fifteen children; in his grandfather's thirteen and in his father's family nine, consisting of seven sons and two daughters. Of these last, two brothers and one sister are now living.

William Robinson, father of our subject, was brought to this country when a young man, together with two others bearing the same name as he, by an uncle whose name was also William Robinson. This uncle was a unique character, of liberal education and a bachelor. The object of his life was to free Ireland, and he came to America with the determination to make a fortune and eventually to use it in bringing about the accomplishment of the aim of his life. He possessed a remarkable memory, and in all his numerous business transactions never kept a book, depending on his memory for everything in this line. He was also very reticent, and never conversed with relatives or friends of his business transactions unless obliged to do so. It is believed that he accumulated a fortune of some two or three million dollars, and was doubtless preparing to devote it to the object for which it was made, when he was seized with a stroke of apoplexy and died without leaving any information to his relatives or friends of where his accumulations were invested, and the lawyers in the large cities where his interests were supposed to be, being discreet enough to keep silent in the matter after his death, neither Ireland nor his relatives received any benefit from his large fortune.

The father of our subject was one of a pair of twins, the tenth addition to the family. He settled in Washington, Washington County, Pa., where he opened a small weaving shop, and early in life married Miss Margaret Bushfield, of Greensburgh, Westmoreland County, Pa. Energetic and industrious, a man of keen intelligence and judicious management, be prospered in business, and at the time of his death, which occurred in Washington, Pa., in 1834, he was a wealthy man. While engaged in weaving, he employed many apprentices. Having always been a Methodist, he was among the first to join the Methodist Protestant Church after the division in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was a very devoted member of that denomination. To aid the cause, he made it a point to "graduate" preachers from among his apprentices at the weaver's bench, and in that way he added a dozen or more ministers to the pulpit of the church, the most prominent of them being Doctor McClintock, of Philadelphia.

Since coming to this country the Robinson family has been largely engaged in business enterprises more particularly in the weaving, paper and iron business. One of our subject's uncles built the Benwood Iron Mills, at Ben wood, three miles south of Wheeling, W.Va., and a brother was extensively interested in paper mills, owning an interest in several large concerns. Quite a number of his immediate family have been newspaper publishers. His eldest brother, Samuel, was for a time connected with the Washington (Pa.) Reporter. His brother James G., in company with D. R. Locke (the famous "Nasby"), first published the Advertiser, at Plymouth, Richland County, Ohio, afterward the Mansfield Herald, at Mansfield, Ohio, and then the Bucyrus Journal.

Subsequently the subject of this sketch purchased Mr. Locke's interest in the last-named paper, after which he and his brother published it for several years. Another brother, William T., learned the printer's trade in Washington County, Pa, and first published the Republican at Knoxville, IL, then the Journal at Leon, Decatur County, Iowa, and is now publishing the Opinion at Glenwood, Iowa, having been a publisher for nearly forty years. When the senior Mr. Robinson died, in 1834, our subject was a child of four years, and his mother was left a widow with seven children. Soon afterward financial reverses came, and in 1837 the family removed to Beverly, Washington County, Ohio, from which point the children began to scatter. In 1840 the mother and three children removed to Morristown, Belmont County, OH, thence to Cambridge, and finally returned to Beverly, where she died in 1841.

Very early in life the struggle for existence began with the subject of this sketch. At eleven years of age, he having determined to learn the trade of a printer, we find him at Meadow Farm, Muskingum County, Ohio, where he found a place with the Rev. Cornelius Springer, who was then publishing the Western Recorder, a Methodist Protestant paper. There he remained about two and one-half years, after which he worked for a time on the Zanesville Aurora, and from there went to Wheeling WV, where he entered the office of the Wheeling Times, then under the management of James E. Wharton. In that office his term of apprenticeship was completed, after which ho attended school in Wheeling for two terms.

We next find Mr. Robinson a teacher in the public schools for one year. This profession, however, did not suit his taste, for while he desired to be a teacher; he wanted to do his work through the columns of a newspaper and not in the schoolroom. Removing to Pittsburgh, he became a journeyman and reporter, and also filled the position of foreman in several offices in that city. He was a member of the second, if not the first, typographical union in this country. While engaged as foreman on the Chronicle in Pittsburgh, he gave to a man who afterward became famous his first work in a printing office. This was no less a personage than David R. Locke, who is noted as the author of the "Nasby Letters" and who made a great success as editor and publisher of the Toledo Blade.

As Mr. Robinson grew older and gained additional experience, he discovered that a more thorough education would be of advantage to him. Accordingly he went to Waynesburgh, Pa., where he entered a college and attended several terms but did not graduate. Later he became proprietor of a bookstore in Wheeling, which, after conducting for little more than a year, he sold. For a time he managed a straw paper mill, in which a brother was interested. On account of failing health, he removed from Wheeling to Fairfield, Huron County, Ohio, and returned to his "first love," the newspaper business. At that time he purchased an interest in the Fairfield Gazette, and continued its publication for two years. He then accepted a position as local editor on the Peoria (IL) Transcript, and after a short time thus spent he purchased the Republican at Middleport, Iroquois County, IL. The fever and ague drove him out of that town and he went to Bucyrus, Ohio, where he bought an interest in the Journal and remained for six and a-half years.

Meantime the Civil War was in progress. Mr. Robinson assisted in raising two companies of volunteers for Union service, notwithstanding the fact that Crawford County was relied upon for a Democratic majority of nineteen hundred, and the blue coat of the soldier upon the street, was often-times the signal for a knock-down. Though desirous of enlisting, Mr. Robinson realized that to do so meant to discontinue a Republican paper in Crawford County, and on consulting with Ohio's old war Governor, David Todd, he was told, "Stick to your paper, Ralph. You can do more good for the Union cause there than you can by fighting rebels at, the front." Therefore his fighting was done through his paper, and he did his full share of it, too. Moreover, he has the honor of a lieutenant's commission, having been commissioned in Company B, First Ohio Regiment, "Squirrel Hunters: at the "siege of Cincinnati" and partook of six-weeks rations of hardtack and "pig's bosom,"

While in Bucyrus, Mr. Robinson married Miss Fannie J. Hamilton, whose home was in Monroeville, Ohio. From Bucyrus he came to Iowa and purchased a half-interest in the Fairfield Ledger with W. W. Junkin, remaining there for six and one-half years. He then went to Clarinda, where he purchased the entire interest, of the Clarinda Herald, running it until 1877, when he came to Newton and bought a half-interest in the Newton Journal, and subsequently purchased the entire paper, in the publication of which he has since engaged.

Socially, he has been a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is a Royal Arch Mason, having taken the first three degrees in Wheeling Lodge No. 128 in 1855, when he lived in that city. He was made a Chapter Mason in McCord Chapter of Fairfield, Iowa, and received the Council degree at Newton.

In all his newspaper ventures and wanderings, Mr. Robinson has been successful as a publisher and has gained the respect and confidence of the people among whom he has resided; he has thrice been honored by being chosen a delegate to national editorial conventions. Since his residence in Iowa, he has visited all parts of the country, from Manitoba on the north to the old city of Mexico on the south, and from Boston on the east to San Diego on the west, travel being his principal recreation. In politics he has always been a Republican.

He is a member of an old Whig family, and his first Republican vote was cast for John C. Fremont, and every vote since has been cast for the nominees of the party he represents, without an exception or a scratch on the tickets. The great good accomplished by the party during all these years of his connection therewith furnishes him with reliable evidence that he has made no mistake in his political affiliations. From 1854 to the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, he was more or less identified with the "Old Liberty Guard" and knew much of the workings and passengers of the underground railway and of the travel of the latter from the slavery of the south to their Mecca of freedom in Canada.

Mr. and Mrs. Robinson are the parents of two daughters and two sons. The eldest daughter, Margaret, is an enthusiastic and earnest worker in church matters and assists her father in local newspaper work. The elder son, Roy, is one of the proprietors of the What Cheer (Iowa) Patriot. The second son, S. Mona, is general assistant for his father on the Journal, and is a practical printer, as is also Roy. The younger daughter, Daisee, has not yet completed her studies at Iowa Agricultural College, where she is now a student. Mr. Robinson's fifty-two years of hard continued labor in and about a printing office is a limit few men have attained, and while not as vigorous as of yore, he may still he found in his printing establishment, guiding and directing, and at his editorial desk. His editorials attract no little attention. When he supports an enterprise, he does it with his whole soul and what he condemns through his paper, his friends are apt to let alone. Portrait and Biographical Record, Jasper, Marshall and Grundy Counties, IA Page 118.
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Robinson, Ralph ~

Ralph Robinson, who died July 21, 1911, was for many years the able editor of the Newton Journal. He was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, September 11, 1830. But little information is before the writer regarding the early history of the Robinson family. We learn, however, that they originated in the north of Ireland and were all Protestants, and by occupation small farmers and weavers. The paternal great-grandfather was quite a leader in his community, and was at one time master of the grand lodge of the Orangemen of Ireland.

The family was numbered among the early Methodists of Ireland, and John Wesley, when in the neighborhood, visited the subject's grandfather, to whom he wrote a number of letters. Large families have always been characteristic of the Robinsons. In his great-grand father's family there were fifteen children; in his grandfather's thirteen, and in his father's family nine, consisting of seven sons and two daughters. Of these last, two brothers and one sister are now living.

William Robinson, father of the subject, was brought to this country when a young man, together with two others bearing the same name as he, by an uncle whose name was also William Robinson. This uncle was a unique character, of liberal education and a bachelor. The object of his life was to free Ireland, and he came to America with the determination to make a fortune and eventually use it in bringing about the accomplishment of the aim of his life. He possessed a remarkable memory and in all his numerous business transactions never kept a book, depending on his memory for everything in this line. He was always very reticent, and never conversed with relatives or friends of his business transactions unless obliged to do so. It is believed that he accumulated a fortune of some two or three million dollars, and was doubtless preparing to devote it to the object for which it was made, when he was seized with a stroke of apoplexy and died without leaving any information to his relatives or friends of where his accumulations were invested, and the lawyers in the large cities where his interests were supposed to be, being discreet enough to keep silent after his death, neither Ireland nor his relatives received any benefit from his large fortune.

The father of the subject was one of a pair of twins, the tenth addition to the family. He settled in Washington, Washington County, Pennsylvania, where he opened a small weaving shop, and early in life married Margaret Bushfield, of Greensburg, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Energetic and industrious, a man of keen intelligence and judicious management, he prospered in business, and at the time of his death, which occurred in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1834, he was a wealthy man. While engaged in weaving, he employed many apprentices. Having always been a Methodist, he was among the first to join the Methodist Protestant Church after the division of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and was a very devoted member of the denomination. To aid the cause, he made it a point to "graduate" preachers from among his apprentices at the weaver's bench, and in that way he added a dozen or more ministers to the pulpit of the church, the most prominent of them being Doctor McClintock, of Philadelphia.

Since coming to this country the Robinson family has been largely engaged in business enterprises, more particularly in the weaving, paper and iron business. One of the subject's uncles built the Benwood Iron Mills, at Benwood, three miles south of Wheeling, West Virginia, and a brother was extensively interested in paper mills, owning an interest in several large concerns. Quite a number of his immediate family have been newspaper publishers. His eldest brother, Samuel, was for a time connected with the Washington (Pennsylvania) Reporter. His brother, James G., in company with D. R. Locke (the famous "Nasby"), first published the Advertiser, at Plymouth, Richland County, Ohio, afterward the Mansfield Herald, at Mansfield, Ohio, and then the Bucyrus Journal.

Subsequently the subject of this sketch purchased Mr. Locke's interest in the last named paper, after which he and his brother published it for several years. Another brother, William T., learned the printer's trade in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and first published the Republican at Knoxville, Illinois, then the Journal at Leon, Decatur County, Iowa, and is now publishing the Opinion at Glenwood, Iowa, having been a publisher for nearly forty years. When the senior Mr. Robinson died, in 1834, the subject was a child of four years, and his mother was left a widow with seven children. Soon afterwards financial reverses came, and in 1837 the family removed to Beverly, Washington County, Ohio, from which point the children began to scatter. In 1840 the mother and three children removed to Morristown, Belmont County, Ohio, thence to Cambridge, and finally returned to Beverly, where she died in 1841.

Very early in life the struggle for existence began with the subject of this sketch. At eleven years of age, he having determined to learn the trade of a printer, we find him at Meadow Farm, Muskingum County, Ohio, where he found a place with the Rev. Cornelius Springer, who was then publishing the Western Recorder, Methodist Protestant paper. There he remained about two and one-half years, after which he worked for a time on the Zanesville Aurora, and from there went to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he entered the office of the Wheeling Times, then under the management of James E. Wharton. In that office his term of apprenticeship was completed, after which he attended school in Wheeling for two terms.

We next find Mr. Robinson a teacher in the public schools for one year. This profession, however, did not suit his taste, for while he desired to be a teacher; he wanted to do his work through the columns of a newspaper and not in the schoolroom. Removing to Pittsburgh, he became a journeyman and reporter, and also filled the position of foreman in several offices in that city. He was a member of the second, if not the first, typographical union in this country. While engaged as foreman on the Chronicle in Pittsburgh, he gave to a man who afterward became famous his first work in a printing office. This was no less a personage than David R. Locke, who is noted as the author of the "Nasby Letters", and who made a great success as editor and publisher of the Toledo Blade.

As Mr. Robinson grew older and gained additional experience, he discovered that a more thorough education would be of advantage to him. Accordingly he went to Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, where he entered college and attended several terms, but did not graduate. Later he became proprietor of a bookstore in Wheeling, which, after conducting for little more than a year, he sold. For a time he managed a straw paper mill, in which a brother was interested. On account of failing health, he removed from Wheeling to Fairfield, Huron County, Ohio, and returned to his "first love," the newspaper business. At that time he purchased an interest in the Fairfield Gazette, and continued its publication for two years. He then accepted a position as local editor of the Peoria, (Illinois) Transcript, and after a short time thus spent he purchased the Republican at Middleport, Iroquois County, Illinois. The fever and ague drove him out of that town, and he went to Bucyrus, Ohio, where he bought an interest in the Journal and remained for six and one-half years.

Meantime the Civil War was in progress. Mr. Robinson assisted in raising two companies of volunteers for Union services, notwithstanding the fact that Crawford County was relied upon for a Democratic majority of nineteen hundred, and the blue coat of a soldier upon the street was oftentimes the signal for a knockdown. Though desirous of enlisting, Mr. Robinson realized that to do so meant to discontinue a Republican paper in Crawford County, and on consulting with Ohio's old War governor, David Todd, he was told, "Stick to your paper, Ralph. You can do more good for the Union cause there than you can by fighting rebels at the front." Therefore his fighting was done through his paper, and he did his full share of it, too. Moreover, he has the honor of a lieutenant's commission, having been commissioned in Company B, First Ohio Regiment, "Squirrel Hunters" at the "Siege of Cincinnati," and partook of six-weeks rations of hardtack and "pig's bosom."

While in Bucyrus, Mr. Robinson married Fannie J. Hamilton, whose home was in Monroeville, Ohio. From Bucyrus he came to Iowa and purchased a half interest in the Fairfield Ledger with W. W. Junkin, remaining there for six and one-half years. He then went to Clarinda, where he purchased the entire interest of the Clarinda Herald, running it until 1877, when he came to Newton and bought a half interest in the Newton Journal, and subsequently purchased the entire paper, in the publication of which he was engaged until his death. Socially, he was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and was a Royal Arch Mason, having taken the first three degrees in Wheeling Lodge No. 128, in 1853, when he lived in that city. He was made a chapter Mason in McCord Chapter of Fairfield, Iowa, and received the council degrees at Newton.

In all his newspaper venturings and wanderings Mr. Robinson was successful as a publisher and gained the respect and confidence of the people among whom he resided. He was thrice honored by being chosen as a delegate to national editorial conventions. Since his residence in Iowa, he visited all parts of the country, from Manitoba on the north to the old city of Mexico on the south, and from Boston on the east to San Diego on the west, travel being his principal recreation. In politics he was always a Republican. He was a member of an old Whig family, and his first Republican vote was cast for John C. Fremont, and every vote afterwards was cast for the nominees of the party he represented, without an exception or a scratch on the tickets. The great good accomplished by the party during all these years of his connection therewith furnished him with reliable evidence that he had made no mistake in his political affiliations. From 1851 to the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, he was more or less identified with the "Old Liberty Guard" and knew much of the workings and passengers of the underground railway and of the travel of the latter from slavery of the South to their Mecca of freedom in Canada.

Mr. and Mrs. Robinson became the parents of two daughters and two sons. The eldest daughter, Margaret, now the wife of Rev. R. F. Chambers, of Jackson, Minnesota, is an enthusiastic and earnest worker in church matters. The eldest son, Roy, is one of the proprietors of the Walsenburg (Colorado) Independent. The second son, S. Mona, is manager of the Newton Manufacturing Company. The younger daughter, Daisee, now Mrs. Mark Evans is now with her mother since the father's death. Mr. Robinson's fifty-two years of hard continued labor in and about a printing office was a limit few men have attained, and he was continually found in his printing establishment, guiding and directing, and at his editorial desk. His editorials attracted no little attention. When he supported an enterprise, he did it with his whole soul, and what he condemned through his paper, his friends were apt to let alone. Past and Present of Jasper County Iowa B. F. Bowden & Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1912 Page 465.