Edward Robinson by Jennie R. Greenwood

Edward Robinson
by Jennie R. Greenwood

My pioneer grandparents on my father's line were Edward Robinson, Sr. and Mary Smith Robinson. Grandfather was a very proud Englishman, born of a high class English family. In his pompous days he wore a long tailed coat, stove pipe hat, used a cane and pinched his feet. At the age of twelve he was placed out to service in a home of nobility. Here he served for many years and met a winsome lassie who was governess in this wealthy home. Because she was highly educated, she tutored the family's children, etc. Later it became Edward's lot to marry this Mary Smith.


About 1840 during this Englishman's railroad career there came a knocking on his door by strangers. They were strangers to him but not to the Great God on high. Their personalities, the tracts of literature, with
the spirit of God, in due time convinced Edward Robinson and wife Mary that they were on the right track and two more souls were added to the fold. The next undertaking for this couple with their six children, after realizing the principle of gathering, was to make arrangements for their transportation to America. After bidding farewell to all their kin and friends and leaving a lovely home, they lifted their feet from the black soil of England never to be seen by them again. They crossed the ocean in 1842 in the sailboat "Henry." It was a long and tiresome voyage from Liverpool to New York. When in America they joined hands and hearts with the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois.

The mother gave birth to another child. Her health was poor and the poverty and persecution they were suffering was more than she could endure. She passed away Sept. 1, 1844, in Nauvoo, leaving this tiny baby and family of seven. Her heart's desire, which was to reach Utah, was never realized.

Later Grandfather married again to a widow of John Wootton by the name of Ann Turner Wootton, who had two children, Attewell and John. Living in the same household with her was Ann Wootton, probably a sister of John Wootton, and her daughter Elizabeth who went to live with Grand¬father. Edward and Ann Turner Wootton Robinson had two sons born to them, George Heber and Alfred, this making a very large family, 14 in all, to immigrate to Utah. My father Edward Robinson, Jr., was but 10 years of age but had to drive an ox team across the plains. He was handed a stick with a strap tied to the end which he used to whack the oxen toward the valley of the mountains.

After their slow and tiresome journey across the barren wastes, in order that they may worship as they pleased, they arrived in Salt Lake Valley Oct. 28, 1849. Edward was sent to American Fork and here he took up farming on a big scale. He built and lived in a log cabin on the farm for a few years, later building a home of adobes on the property that is now known as Robinson Park. He was a landscape gardener; his lawns, flower beds, shrubs and beautiful trees, which are still there, were the show place of the town. He had three wives, eleven children, and four stepchildren. He was not a polygamist. Son Alfred Robinson died and was buried in American Fork's old cemetery.

His third wife, Margaret Grovener, was an English cook. Half the children in town would call at their door on Christmas morning for a treat. She later lost her sight and he his hearing. They would go arm in arm, he was the eyes for her and she was the ears for him.

He was a kind and loving father. His stepchildren thought as much of him as his own did and his property was divided equally among them. He died April 18, 1896, in his 89th year, a true Latter-day Saint.