Cumberland County, Maine – Joseph L. Robinson
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Biography
Joseph L. Robinson
Biographical Review
Cumberland County, Maine
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1896
Page 23-27

Joseph L. Robinson, President of the Robinson Mills Manufacturing Company at
South Windburn,Me., was born on February 1, 1867, in the town of Oxford, Oxford
County. He is of English stock on the paternal side, both his father, the late
Thomas L. Robinson, and his grandfather, Joseph, having been natives of Leeds,
England.

Joseph Robinson learned the trade of a dyer and finisher when a young man, and
followed that occupation in England and Austria until 1846, when he came to
America. He had married on March 26, 1833, Frances A., daughter of Thomas Lewis,
of Leeds; and in 1847 he was joined by his family at Ballardvale, Mass., where
he worked for a year as an assistant in the dyeing and finishing room of a
woollen-mill. The next year he continued at his trade in the factory of John
Townsend at Milton Mills, afterward working as a dyer and finisher at Rochester,
N.H., with the Norway Plains Manufacturing Company. In 1857, in company with Mr.
John Hall, of Rochester, N.H., he located in Oxford, Me., buying an old mill
which they fitted up and started as a woollen-mill. He subsequently bought out
his partner, and afterward sold one-half interest in the mill to H. J. & F. 0.
Libby, the business being incorporated as the Robinson Manufacturing Company,
with Joseph Robinson as President, Treasurer, and General Manager, a position
for which he was well adapted, and which he filled creditably until his death,
March 6, 1895. He was, in very truth, the architect of his own fortune, securing
affluence and influence by honesty, ability, and upright manliness. Coming to
this country with a very small amount of money, when he first found work he had
but two English pennies to his name; and these very same pieces of coin, which
he always kept, are now treasured by one of his grandsons.

Fifteen children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Robinson, the following six of
whom are now living: Mary S., Frances A., Louisa, John B., Selina E., and Albert
E. Mary S. Robinson, born February 4, 1835, is the wife of George J. Parrott,
and has five children, namely: Joseph R., Vice-President and General Manager of
the Jacksonville, Tamps & Key West Railway and of the Indian River Steamboat
System; James E.; Elmer L.; Eva L.; and Albert E. Frances A., born in October,
1838, is the wife of Lieutenant George E. Andrews, and has one child, Frances J.
Louisa, born May 17, 1848, married, Edwin Richmond. John B., born August 16,
1852, married Cora E. Millett, of Norway, and has one child, Joseph. Selina E.,
born in Rochester, N.H., December 5, 1855, is the widow of Thomas Carr, and has
one daughter, Selina. Albert E. Robinson was born in Oxford. Me., May 20, 1858.

Thomas L., son of Joseph and Frances A. Robinson, was born on August 18, 1840,
and was about seven years old when he came to this country with his mother in
the sailing vessel "Orazebee," the rough and tedious voyage occupying eight
weeks. He attended the district schools of Rochester, N.H., in his boyhood,
later completing his education at Corner's Business College in Boston, Mass. At
the age of seventeen, when his father moved to Oxford, Me., Thomas took the
place he had vacated in the Rochester mill, working as a dyer and finisher for
about a year. Going then to Oxford, he worked for his father until 1863, when he
secured a position under S. S. Fisher as superintendent of the Raritan woollen-
mills in New Jersey. He remained there until 1866, when he became superintendent
of his father's mill at Oxford. Being at length obliged, on account of ill
health, to seek another occupation, he opened a country grocery store in Oxford,
which he conducted until 1879. Then, leasing the old Malison Falls mill for
three years, he started it as a woollen-mill, and in 1880, before the lease
had expired, purchased the property.

In 1881 he erected a mill with a capacity of five sets, managing this
successfully until the mill was burned in 1888. Two years prior to this event he
had bought the plant of the Great Falls Woollen Manufacturing Company, the mill
having a capacity of ten sets; and at the time of the purchase in 1886 he owned
a larger amount of machinery for manufacturing woollens than any one man in all
New England. He at once rebuilt the burned mill in South Windham, increasing its
capacity to double its former size. He did not put it in operation, however,
owing to the depression of business at that time, but continued the management
of the Great Falls mill until his death, June 26, 1890. While in Raritan, N.J.,
he married December 3, 1865, Louisa Weeks, a daughter of Albert and Jane
(Burnett) Weeks, of Dutchess County, New York. Of the three children born of
their union, but two are now living--Joseph L. and Charles A.

In 1891, after the death of the father, the mills at Great Falls were sold, and
the sons started work in the new mills at South Windham, giving employment to
one hundred and ten hands, and manufacturing fine woollen goods, broadcloths and
kerseys, shipping the products to New York and the Western markets. The present
company was incorporated in 1892 with Joseph L. Robinson as President, and
Charles as Treasurer and General Manager. Both are prominent business men of the
town, active and influential in religious, political, and social circles,
affiliating with the Republican party on State and national issues. Charles A.
Robinson, born September 28, 1868, married Edith M. Nute, of Great Falls, N.H.,
their nuptials being solemnized June 30, 1892. They have one child, Alberta,
born May 3, 1893.

Joseph L. Robinson acquired his elementary education in the schools of Oxford
and Windham, afterward attending Phillips Academy at Andover, Mass. Since
leaving school he has been connected with the mill. Mr. Robinson, socially, is a
member of Oriental Lodge, No. 17, Knights of Pythias, of South Windham;while his
brother Charles is conspicuously identified with the Masonic fraternity, having
taken the thirty-second degree. On March 9, 1888, Mr. Joseph L. Robinson was
united in marriage with Miss Mary E. Doughty, a daughter of Albert and Elizabeth
(Simpson) Doughty, of Gray, Me. Their pleasant home has been brightened by the
birth of three children, namely: Vera L., born August l, 1889; Thomas L., born
August 11, 1891; and Albert L., born November 15, 1893.