Robinson, John

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: T. W. Acheson, “ROBINSON, JOHN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/robinson_john_6E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Businessman, office holder, and politician; b. 1762 in the Highlands (Hudson Hills), near New York City, third son of Beverley Robinson and Susanna Philipse, and grandson of John Robinson, former president of the Council and administrator of Virginia; m. 1787 Elizabeth Ludlow, second daughter of George Duncan Ludlow, chief justice of New Brunswick; d. 8 Oct. 1828 in Saint John, N.B
    • A son of one of the most distinguished supporters of the British cause in New York, John Robinson was born to wealth and position and he remained a member of the loyalist aristocracy, which was to dominate the social and political life of New Brunswick during its first half-century. His education by private tutors on his father’s estates in New York was interrupted by the American revolution, during which, at the age of 15, he enlisted in the Loyal Americans, the regiment raised and commanded by his father. By 1781 he had survived the battle of Kings Mountain and achieved the rank of lieutenant.
    • He retired on half pay at the conclusion of the war and, after a brief stay in the Annapolis region of Nova Scotia, settled in the Saint John River valley, likely in 1786. The central fact in Robinson’s life and career was his membership in the Robinson family. His father was not only a wealthy loyalist refugee, he was a figure invested with great authority in his own lifetime, and around him much of the loyalist myth would gather. Each of his sons achieved distinction, the older ones in New Brunswick, the younger in the British army.
    • John Robinson would eventually find himself at the centre of a network of relationships that comprehended most of the loyalist establishment of New Brunswick. Shortly after his arrival in New Brunswick Robinson was created sheriff of Queens County, a high honour for a man not yet 26 years of age; from this early period he also held for a time the office of deputy adjutant-general of militia. Within a few years he had abandoned the ideal of a country gentleman’s life and joined the powerful commercial élite of the city of Saint John, setting up there as a general merchant.
    • He became a popular figure in the city and was returned to the House of Assembly in 1802 at a general election. Indeed, perhaps the most interesting aspect of John Robinson’s career is the light it sheds on the relationship between government and business in loyalist New Brunswick and the questions it raises concerning the widely accepted view that the competing aspirations of the official and merchant communities formed the central political dynamic of the period. For Robinson neatly encompassed both traditions, as well as the military element that characterized loyalist society.
  • United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=7061
  • Find A Grave : https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/164212518/john-robinson