robinsonj

Transcribed from "An Illustrated History of The Big Bend Country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin counties, State of Washington", published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.

     JAMES E. ROBINSON is a prosperous farmer owning four hundred and eighty acres of choice agricultural land one and one-half miles west and one-half mile north of Moscow, Washington. Born January 28, 1857, at Bloomington, Indiana, he was the son of John G. and Ellen (Fink) Robinson, natives respectively, of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The father's ancestors came from Ireland. He came to Bloomington in 1856 and is still living there in his seventy-ninth year. He is a retired farmer. The mother died in 1891.
     Mr. Robinson has two sisters: Ella, and Mrs. Lizzie Hunter, of Indiana.
     Our subject received a thorough common school education and took a course in college. In the spring of 1882 he came west, stopping for a space at Cheney, Washington, and in the fall of that year filed on his present home as a homestead. He being a pioneer settler here, he found it hard to make a living on his land alone, so took work on the construction of the Northern Pacific railroad. He worked on the road in Montana until the golden spike was driven, when he returned to his Big Bend farm and began to make improvements.
     On May 3, 1889, Mr. Robinson was joined in marriage to Caroline Macklenburg, a native of Germany. Her parents were Ferdinand and Mary Macklenburg, early settlers in Minnesota and now residents of Medical Lake, Washington. Six children have blessed this union: Ellen, Ernest, Mabel, George Dewey, Everett and Bernice. Mr. Robinson is a member of the Modern Woodmen fraternity.
     The first few years Mr. Robinson spent in this county he lived in a twelve-by-sixteen cabin, which later has been supplanted by a large ten-room house with all the modern conveniences. His improvements are all in keeping with the up-to-date farm, with a large bearing fruit orchard and an excellent water system. He has an abundance of live stock and farm machinery and implements to carry on his business, of which he is making a signal success.

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