BIO: James Boyd Robison CHALFANT, son of William Mifflin County, PA

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Author: Biographical Publishing Co.

CAPT. JAMES BOYD ROBISON, who served with great credit as a captain in the Union
Army during the Civil War, is a man who has attained particular prominence as an
attorney-at-law in Bloomsburg, Columbia County, Pa. He resides in a handsome
home at Espy, but every day finds him in his office in Bloomsburg looking after
his extensive practice. He was born in Bloomsburg, January 3, 1838, and is a son
of William and Betsey (Barton) Robison.

  His great-grandfather was William Robison, who was born in the North of
Ireland and was of Scotch-Irish parentage. He was unmarried when he came to
America, but subsequently was joined in wedlock with Martha Huston, a native of
this country. They resided in the beginning of the last century in the Juniata
region, where he was engaged in agricultural pursuits the remainder of his life.
In religious attachments he was a strict believer in the Presbyterian faith. He
was the progenitor of the following children: James: Hugh; John; Alexander;
David; William; Joseph; Margaret; Agnes; Elizabeth; Jane; and Rebecca-Alexander
Robison, grandfather of our subject, also took to agricultural pursuits at
McVeytown, Pa., where he was born and lived all his life. He married Elizabeth
McKee and among the children who blessed that union was William, the father of
our subject.

  William Robison was born in McVeytown, Pa., January 19, 1789, and was reared
upon his father's farm, obtaining his intellectual education in the district
schools. In 1810 he located near Orangeville, Columbia County, where he opened
and conducted a general store for four or five years, and then moved to
Bloomsburg with his brother John. They operated a tannery at the corner of Third
street and Miller's alley with much success until 1826. In connection with the
tannery they built the stone house, corner of Third street and Millers alley. It
was first occupied by William and his wife on their marriage, January 30, 1816,
and is now the oldest house in town. In 1822 William Robison was appointed
sheriff of Columbia County, serving in that capacity for a short time. From 1826
to 1840 he conducted a first-class hotel at the corner of Second and Center
streets, where Moyer's drugstore is now located. During this period he was also
extensively engaged in staging,-providing the only transportation from
Bloomsburg to many points, and he did a very large business. In 1840 he rented
his hotel and became interested in farming, purchasing a large farm in Hemlock
township, which is now owned by J. Trout, Esq., and continuing there until 1846,
when he again returned to Bloomsburg and carried on a mercantile business in the
hotel building for eight years. Being past sixty-six years of age, in 1855 he
retired from active life and lived happily until his demise, in 1866.
Politically he was originally a Democrat and then a Clay Whig, but later became
a Republican, remaining so the rest of his life. He owned one-third of the lot
on which the court-house stands and presented it to the county. In religious
views he was a Presbyterian. Socially, he was a member of the Masonic
fraternity. January 30. 1816, he married Betsey Barton, who was born in
Bloomsburg, January 36, 1799, and was a daughter of Elisha Barton, one of the
early prominent men of Bloomsburg, and this union resulted in the following
issue: Alexander, deceased, who married Mary E. Thompson; Jane McKee, wife of
Lynd Elliott; Anna Maria, wife of Ariovistus Pardee; Martha Elizabeth, who
married Andrew M. Rupert; Harriet, wife of Charles E. Frazer; Ellen Boone, wife
of Dr. William B. Hawkins; Emily A., wife of George B. Markle; Isabelle, wife of
Nathaniel L. Campbell; William Barton, who died at the age of four years; Mary
Augusta, deceased; James Boyd, the subject of this biographical record; Isaiah
B., a soldier in the Civil War who gave up his life for the cause of his country
at the battle of Peach Tree Creek in 1864; and Hannah Amelia, wife of Fred E.
Barber.

  James Boyd Robison attended the public schools and the Bloomsburg Academy and
applied himself with such diligence that he was considered qualified to teach
and received an appointment in Mifflin township, Columbia County, January 10,
1854, just one week after his sixteenth birthday. On August 19, of that year, he
was awarded the first permanent certificate issued by Carbon County. He taught
at Summit Hill for seven months and then served for two months on a corps of
engineers who laid out the Yeddo Branch of the Hazleton Railroad. In 1855 he
entered Lafayette College at Easton, Pa., from which he received the degree of
A. M. in 1867, but in 1857 he went to Washington, D. C., where he was engaged in
writing patents for the land office for five months. He held a position as
bookkeeper at Mauch Chunk, Carbon County, for three months, when he went to
Illinois, where he engaged in teaching school and selling books from 1858 to
1859. In August, 1859, he began to prepare himself for the legal profession,
entering the office of Jason T. Giebner, a well-known lawyer of Mercer, Mercer
County, Pa., in the meantime making enough as a clerk in the sheriff's office to
support himself. When the first shot, which startled the world, was fired at
Fort Sumter in 1861, opening the real hostilities between the Union Army and the
Secessionists, our subject was one of the first to offer his aid to his country.
On the day after receiving intelligence of the first encounter he drew up an
enlistment paper and headed it with his own name. This was the first enlistment
in Mercer County; The company was soon organized and was at first known as the
Mercer Rifles, but was mustered in June 17, 1861, as Company G, 10th Regt. Pa.
Vol. Reserves, under Capt. A. J. Warner, for a period of three years. Mr.
Robison was a sergeant of the company and remained in the service until he
received a severe wound in the left hand at the second battle of Bull Run, when
he was sent to the hospital, receiving his discharge December 18, 1862. In June
of the year following he was elected captain of Company H, of the 35th Regiment,
at Harrisburg, Pa., with which he served until August, 1863, when he returned
home and thence to Mercer and resumed his studies, being admitted to the bar in
November, 1863. During the following winter he taught school at Sandy Lake,
Mercer County. On June 1, 1864, he went to Washington, D. C., as a clerk under
Capt. J. T. Giebner in the commissary department, who was assigned to the 19th
Army Corps under Gen. Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. It was his misfortune
to be captured by the Rebels on September 26, and on October 17 he was cast into
Libby Prison, where the Union men received the treatment commonly accorded Union
prisoners of war. On February 17, 1865, he secured his release and returned to
Mercer, Pa., where he shortly after was elected district attorney. Serving only
a short time, he resigned and moved to St. Louis, Mo., at the beginning of the
year, and with two others engaged in the real estate business until 1867. Owing
to the weakness of the leading member of the firm in the use of liquor, the
business was not a success and had to be abandoned. Removing to Bloomsburg he
entered upon the practice of law and was subsequently appointed United States
Commissioner. From 1872 to 1875 he served as notary public, and for several
years as corporation counsel. The greater part of his life he has been a
Republican, and in 1870 he was the party nominee for the State Legislature. In
1880 he was nominated by the Greenback party for Congress, receiving a larger
vote than any other on his ticket, but, of course, was defeated. In 1896 he took
sides with the Democracy, on the silver issue. In 1881 he purchased a farm near
Bloomsburg and conducted it until 1885; he purchased a fine residence in Espy in
1893 and now resides there, but his office and place of business is in
Bloomsburg. Capt. Robison is widely known throughout his section as a man of
great worth and integrity, and there are none but what hold him in the highest
esteem and accord him their confidence.

  On October 16, 1873, he was joined in Hymen's bonds with Mary Jane Breece, a
daughter of Daniel Breece, and the following children bless their home; Martha
Elizabeth, a teacher, a graduate of the Bloomsburg State Normal School; James
Boyd, a graduate of the Bloomsburg State Normal School, now in Illinois; Bessie
Mary, a graduate of the Bloomsburg State Normal School, resides at home; Isaiah
Barton, died in infancy; William Daniel, now attending school; Jennie Breece;
Emily; Andrew Horace; and Irving Alexander, all attending school. Socially our
subject is a member of the following orders: Odd Fellows; Patrons of Husbandry;
Grand Army of the Republic; and of Masonic bodies, being a Knight Templar and a
member in the Thirty-second Degree, Scottish Rite.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Book of Biographies of the Seventeenth Congressional District
Published by 
Biographical Publishing Company of Chicago, Ill. and Buffalo, NY (1899)

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