Early Life
Born in Keokuk County, Iowa, James Brooks Ayers Robertson was born in Keokuk County, Iowa on March 15, 1871, to a father of the same name from Pennsylvania and Clara Robertson from Ohio. In the early 1850s, both of Robertson’s parents moved to Iowa, where Robertson's father served as a volunteer soldier in the Union army during the American Civil War. Robertson’s Iowa upbringing would instill in him firm progressive attitudes.
The fifth child born to a family of six sons and five daughters, Robertson was educated in the Iowa public school system. Working hard to improve himself, Robertson became a licensed teacher when he was only 16. While teaching, he was privately studying law and the legal system, and he passed the Iowa bar exam in 1892 at the age of 21. The following year, Robertson moved to Chandler in Oklahoma Territory.
Read more about this topic: James B. A. Robertson
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