James Scott Robinson (1792 - 1887)

Born 16 Oct 1792 in Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne, Pennsylvania, United States

Husband of Lucy (Jayne) Robinson — married 1820 in Wilkes Barre,, Pennsylvania, USA

Descendants

Died 24 May 1887 at age 94 in Lenoxville, Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, United States

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Biography

Few settlers were living within the limits of the county at that date (1796) but it appears that a log cabin had been rolled up by someone, for they (Bryant and Elizabeth) entered it on the day of their arrival, and he (James Scott Robinson) thinks his father must have bought the improvement of someone who had been there perhaps a year or two previous. The dwelling was of the most primitive kind, constructed of rough logs rudely chinked; a great unsightly stone chimney at the end with a huge fireplace opening into the room and a wide stone hearth projecting beyond where the fire was built. The floor was made of logs flattened and hewed so as to fit together and the door latch, made of wood, was lifted by a string on the outside.

In building a fire, a large log three or four feet long was rolled into the backside of the fireplace, and wood of the same length, coarsely split, was piled upon the andirons, which were sometimes of iron and sometimes only square blocks of stone four or five inches thick placed at each side of the fireplace to hold the wood from the ashes. The shovel and tongs were always an appendage, leaning against the jambs at the corner. During cool nights, when a bright fire was blazing on the hearth and roaring and crackling up the chimney, filling the rude apartment with a rich flood of light, a corner by the old stone fireplace was a very pleasant position. Cooking was done by suspending kettles over the fire by means of a crane fastened to the jambs or sides of the fireplace. Johnny cakes were baked in spiders set among the coals with a cover containing coals upon the top and bread was baked in tin ovens placed before the fire.

Mr Robinson remembers hearing his mother say she was afraid they would never be able to raise any chickens on account of the foxes and minks. He had never seen any of these animals and had no idea how they looked. On going to the door early one morning, he beheld a deer in the clearing just before the house. “Oh!” he cried out, “Here’s a fox or a mink! Come quick, I can see his ears!”

The woods were but a short distance from the house and extended far away in nearly all directions, for the settlements were far away and only just beginning.

from an article interviewing James Scott Robinson published in the New Milford Advertiser in 1886

Sources

• "United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MWVX-652 : 16 July 2017), James Robinson, Lenoxville, Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, United States; citing enumeration district ED 131, sheet 287D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 1196; FHL microfilm 1,255,196.

• "Pennsylvania, County Marriages, 1885-1950," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VF4Q-T34 : accessed 13 February 2016), James S. in entry for S. De Witt Robinson and Mary A. Powers, 20 Jan 1904; citing Marriage, Pennsylvania, county courthouses, Pennsylvania; FHL microfilm 947,866.