© 2018 Christy K.
Robinson
Rather than write a narrative on the life of my 8th
great-grandfather Isaac Robinson, son of Rev. John Robinson, I’ll submit this
timeline of his life events, along with my commentary.
Timeline:
 |
Leiden, Netherlands, centered around the St Pieterskirke where
Rev. John Robinson is buried. |
1610 Isaac
Robinson born in Leiden, Netherlands, to Rev. John and Bridget Robinson, pastor
of the Pilgrims, who had experienced persecution and prison in England before
fleeing to Netherlands for religious liberty. Two children, John and Bridget,
were born in England, and Isaac was the first child born in the Netherlands. He
had five siblings. During Isaac’s childhood, his father was pastor of the
English “Pilgrims,” an author of numerous religious tracts, and a professor at
the University of Leiden. The Pilgrim families built about 21 small houses in
the Green Close near the St. Pieterskirke church.
Isaac was four years younger than the miller’s son who would become a great
artist, Rembrandt van Rijn, also a Leiden native. Rembrandt attended Leiden
University when Rev. John Robinson was teaching there, and Isaac’s brother John
Robinson III was a student there.
 |
St Pieterskirke, near where the Pilgrims lived. Isaac's father is buried
beneath the church floor. |
1620 Pilgrims
emigrated on Mayflower to their
intended destination of Virginia, but they ended up in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
The Robinson family stayed in Leiden because Rev. John Robinson ministered to
the congregation that remained in Leiden.
1625 Father,
John Robinson, died in Leiden at age 50. Robinson fell ill on Saturday, 22 Feb.
1625, yet preached twice the next day. The plague was then rife at Leiden (and
indeed, pandemic in Europe and England), In Leiden, 9,600 died that year, but John
Robinson did not catch the plague. He was weakened by an acute fever. He died
on 1 March 1625 (Dutch reckoning, or present style; in the old English reckoning
it was 19 Feb. 1624).
Unknown year Isaac must have moved to England for a
time before he sailed from Bristol to the port of Boston in Massachusetts Bay
Colony. He may have lived with relatives in Lincolnshire or Nottinghamshire.
His older brother was still obtaining his higher education in Europe, so Isaac
wasn’t living with him.
1631 On Feb. 5 Isaac arrived Boston Harbor
on ship Lyon. He had departed from
Bristol on December 11, 1630 on a tempestuous 66-day journey. The Lyon made the rare journey in the
vicious Atlantic storms of a Little Ice Age winter, stuffed full of supplies,
food, and “a store of lemons” to curb the starvation and scurvy rampant in
Massachusetts. That ship carried only about 20 passengers, including Rev. Roger
Williams.
The ship’s master, William Pierce, wrote to John Winthrop
just before departure and presumably sent the letter by a small, fast ship,
“and now having obtyned some quantity my ship is so full that I cannott take in
what I would and should; but mr. allerton hath a ship to depart from barnstable
very shortly, unto the which we send away what I cannot take in. I wish with
all my heart you were here at present to help in the Busines I am over chardged
with, to my leisure. if the lord did not greatly sustayn me I should be over
whelmed with it. I do now with all my strength endevor to be gon to sea.”
On Nov. 11, after another food and supplies delivery from
the Lyon, Boston held a day of
thanksgiving. Plymouth Colony people traveled to Boston to celebrate a
thanksgiving feast.
 |
I created this map to show where Isaac Robinson lived, and in which order.
|
1632 “Isaak
Robinson was at [
Mary Goodall Masterson's] house last sommr nigh death and so
continewed til his recoverie aftr or [our] friend's [Richard Masterson's] death
[from cholera] and comes to us sometimes, soo shee hath had op[por]tunitie to
requite his fathrs labor of love in some measure, and his mothrs love and
loving tokens.”
Isaac, like other single men, wasn’t allowed to live alone, so he lived with
friends of his parents’, the Mastersons. They had been members of Rev. John Robinson's church at Leiden.
Isaac nearly died from cholera in an
epidemic.
1634 Isaac
moved to Duxbury.
1636 Married
to Margaret Hanford in Scituate, Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts.
Serves on grand jury.
1636-37 Plymouth Colony and a
Massachusetts militia went to war against Pequot tribes in southern New
England, including parts of Plymouth’s charter lands, and Connecticut and Rhode
Island. From 700 to 1,000 Pequots were gruesomely slaughtered, as described by
Governor Bradford. Survivors became slaves.
1638 Daughter
Susannah born at Scituate.
1639 Deputy
for Barnstable.
1640 Son
John born at Barnstable.
1643 Mother
Bridget White Robinson, in Leiden, makes will on Oct. 28. She leaves money (40
guilders) to Isaac, and a black skirt and suit to Isaac’s wife.
1645 Daughter
Fear born at Barnstable.
1646 Tax
collector for Barnstable.
1647 Daughter
Mercy born at Barnstable.
1649 Wife
Margaret dies after 14 years of marriage. Margaret passed away on June 13,
1649, in Barnstable, Massachusetts, being 30 years old. She died as a result of
complications of childbirth, having given birth to a premature daughter (who
also died) just the week before her own death. “The wife of Isaac Robinsonn
buried [at Barnstable] June 13, 1649, and a maid child born of her before the
ordinary time buried the week before.”
1650 Isaac
marries second wife, Mary.
1651 Son
Israel born, Barnstable. Israel Robinson later changed his name to Isaac, since
his older half-brother had died.
1653 Son
Jacob born, Barnstable.
1655 Son
Peter born, Barnstable.
1656 Quakers
arrive in Massachusetts: many in Sandwich, Mass., convert to Quakers and begin
suffering heavy fines, beatings, confiscation of property, imprisonment, etc.,
under their Plymouth Governor Prence and Massachusetts Governor John
Endecott.
Isaac is the first to build a house between Fresh and Salt
ponds at Falmouth, and was given four acres by his house, eight acres nearby,
and one and a half of meadow elsewhere.
 |
| The signature of Isaac (who spelled his name Isaack). |
1659 Isaac was asked to attend Quaker meetings to
help the Quakers see the error of their ways. Instead, upon attendance, he felt
that the laws that had been enacted against the Quakers were tyrannical and
should be repealed. He wrote a letter to the magistrates stating this. As a
consequence in 1660, the court ordered him stripped of his rights as a freeman,
which lasted for thirteen years.
1660 On 7
March the court “taking
notice of sundry scandals and falsehoods in a letter of Isacke Robinson's,
tending greatly to the prejudice of this government and encouragement of those
commonly called Quakers, and thereby liable ... to disenfranchisement, yet we
at present forebear the censure until further inquiry be made into things” [PCR
3:183].
The letter may have had to do with the Quakers William Robinson (no known
relation) and Marmaduke Stevenson, who were executed in October 1659 after
several visits to Plymouth Colony. Mary Dyer visited Sandwich in November 1659.
People who were Quakers in this period were arrested, fined
heavily for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the colonial government,
had property and livestock confiscated by greedy courts, were jailed without
heat in the Massachusetts winters, and were stripped to the waist and flogged
nearly to death. However, there’s no record of Isaac Robinson suffering those
persecutions, and it seems that he only lost his freeman status. I suggest that
Isaac’s heritage as the son of the revered Pastor John Robinson protected him
in Plymouth Colony.
1660 On
6 June 1660, five days after the execution of
Mary Barrett Dyer, a Quaker,
Isaac Robinson “for being a manifest opposer of the laws of this government
expressed by him in a letter directed the Governor and otherwise” is
disfranchised of the freedom of the corporation.
An interlineation
following says, there being some mistake in this, Isaac Robinson is
re-established and by general vote of the court, accepted again [PCR 3:189]; this
interlineation may have been made as late as 1673, for Isaac Robinson is not in
the 29 May 1670 list of Plymouth freemen, and on 4 July 1673 Plymouth Court “voted
Mr. Isacke Robinson to be reestablished in the privilege of a freeman of this
corporation” [PCR 5:126]. http://www.revjohnrobinson.com/isaac.htm
1661 Saconesett (later called Falmouth):
Entered land where he had 4 acres by his house (between Fresh & Salt Ponds)
and 8 more, plus 1-1/2 of meadow elsewhere. Sept 20 - Robinson, Isacke (Senr.)
acknowledges receipt of legacy by will of Timothy Hatherly.
1665 7 February Mr. Isaac Robinson was
approved by the court to keep an ordinary [tavern, inn] at Saconesett
(Falmouth), “since there is great
recourse to and fro by travellers to Martin's Vineyard and Nantucket.” He
may have converted to Quaker beliefs in 1665.
1666 He
called himself “Isacke Robinson Senior of Barnstable, planter,” in a legal
transaction.
1668 28
October “Robinson, Isacke; Lumbert, Barnard; Phinney, John - Land laid out
to them 28th, 8 mo. [Oct. 28] by Thomas Hinckley, Nathaniel Bacon, Richard
Bourne” - Barnstable, making him an original settler of Falmouth.
1669 8 November – Isaac’s second wife Mary
dies
1672 27 August - Barnstable, “Annable,
Anthony; Robinson, Isacke; Fuller,
Samuel; Blossom, Peter - Granted of Quachattacett and Webaconett, land of
Saconessett.”
1673 Is
reinstated as freeman.
1676-77 King Philip’s War raged in New
England between the English colonists and native tribes. More than 2,500
colonists died, and more than 5,000 native Americans died.
1685 Minutes
of Sandwich Monthly [Friends] Meeting: “Friends of Suckonesset were encouraged
to meet together.” This was the formal start of the West Falmouth Meeting of
the Religious Society of Friends, which 300 years later continues. Of the £44
subscribed for the purpose, £8 were contributed by ten Sandwich Friends. The 14
Falmouth Friends who contributed £36 for the building of their meeting house
were Richard Landers, Thomas Bowerman, Stephen Harper, Joseph Landers, Benjamin
Bowerman, Justes Gifford, Stephen Bowerman, Isaac Robinson, John
Robinson, Peter Robinson, William Gifford, Benjamin Swift, John Wing, and
Daniel Allen.
1686 Granted
to his son Peter, 1/7 of Tisbury Great Neck (on Martha’s Vineyard).
1700 Sold
1/16 of Scrubby Neck along with 1/13 part of Sooconqueta in Tisbury and a lot
in Kepheggon for an undisclosed sum of money.
1700 Granted
southern half of his Kepheggon lot to son Israel/Isaac.
1701 Isaac
Robinson sold his home lot at Tisbury to his son Israel/Isaac and removed to
his daughter's in Barnstable.
1702 He
was living at Barnstable in Apr. 1702 when Judge Samuel Sewell of Boston
visited him. On 4 April 1702 Samuel Sewall wrote “Visit Mr. [Isaac] Robinson,
who saith he is 92 years old, is the son of Mr. [John] Robinson pastor of the
church of Leiden, part of which came to Plimo [Plymouth]. But to my
disappointment he came not to New England till the year [1631] in which Mr.
[John] Wilson was returning to England after the settlement of Boston. I told
him was very desirous to see him for his father's sake, and his own. Gave him
an Arabian piece of gold to buy a book for some of his grandchildren.” During
the same visitation, Judge Sewell traveled to Martha's Vineyard where he “walked”
with one of Isaac's sons, but Sewell did not mention in his diary the son's
name.
1704 Isaac
died, aged 94, at daughter Fear Robinson Baker’s home in Barnstable, Mass.
**********
Christy K Robinson is author of
these books:
And of these sites:
Discovering
Love (inspiration and service)
Rooting
for Ancestors (history and genealogy)
William and Mary Barrett Dyer
(17th century culture and history of England and New England)
 |
| Isaac Robinson, four generations down, and two generations up the pedigree. |
In the early 1990s before she passed away, my
mother gave me an antique carriage clock she said belonged to her
grandfather, John Russell Stone (1880-1938). Today I tried to find an age for my
clock, and one antique store listing says "first half of 19th century."
If it came down in John Stone’s family, that would mean it belonged to
his grandparents. Mine looks just like the antique store’s photo, and
has the key inside the back door, but it doesn't run. 
