Orrin W. Robinson - Early Life

Early Life

Robinson was born in Claremont, New Hampshire, to Williams Dean and Zilpah (Clement) Robinson. Orrin's great-grandfather, David Robinson, was a soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, reaching the rank of captain. After the war, David settled in Cornish, New Hampshire. A son, Everett Robinson, grandfather to Orrin, served in the War of 1812.

Orrin's early education was in the public schools. At the age of ten, he went to live on a neighboring farm, where he worked on the farm during the summer for his board and clothes and attended school in the winter. When he was 17, he went to work for a year at a gun factory in Windsor, Vermont. After this he spent two more years working a farm in the summer and attending school during the winter. In 1854, at the age of 19, he borrowed fifty dollars to travel and join his uncle, S.S. Robinson, who was managing the Derby copper mine in Ontonagon County, Michigan. Arriving in June 1854, he worked for nearly two years at various mines in the area. In February 1856, he walked to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he then proceeded by stage to Fond du Lac, then by rail to Chicago and Galena, Illinois on to Dubuque, Iowa. He then walked across the prairie to Fort Dodge and then to Kossuth County, Iowa, where he worked as an engineer in a saw-mill. Following the Spirit Lake massacre in March 1857, immigration into the area nearly stopped and combined with the Panic of 1857 created greater economic hardship than usual for a frontier community. Robinson nonetheless purchased 320 acres (1.3 km2) of land and lived there for about five years.