Based on material written by Lucretia Lyman Ranney: “Always the path of American destiny has been into the Unknown. With each new test and each new time and cost, there are those prepared to pay the cost. In settling the frontier of America, there was the great unknown of a vast continent of wilderness to be faced. Through the trials and hardships of the Revolutionary War, there was the unknown again. Later in the trials and hardships of crossing the plains and pioneering the West, there was the unknown.”

Our Ancestors were willing to face and help conquer the unknown and pay the cost. I regret very much not being able to trace the Robison line back any further than we have it, but I have tried to help conquer the unknown.

We have had a researcher in New York helping for some time but she was unable to find anything. In a letter to me she said, “I can find no trace of the Robisons; why your folks didn’t even get in jail!” Well, at least that is something worth knowing! Quite a number of years ago my sister hired a genealogist from the Genealogical Society to work on the Robison line. She was unable to follow the family in New York where it was supposed to be so she said that our family has been wrong, that Joseph Robison who married Cornelia Guinal was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts., and was a son of James Robison and Sarah Breck and she changed his birth date to the date of Joseph the son of James Robison and Sarah Breck.

The Robison-Breck line is very easily followed and it was no trouble to give us a pedigree to the American immigrants.

I never did think that it was right. I did not, however, have a chance to investigate it until the summer of 1946, when I was doing research work for the Partridge Family and as usual was thinking of my mother’s family – the Robisons. I first investigated the St. George temple records and found that Matilda Robison King and her son, Volney, had done work in that temple in 1882 and she had done the work for her grandmother, Margaret Adams, wife of James Robison, but there was no mention of Sarah Breck.

Later I found some family records in possession of my cousin, Albert Robison in Provo and he kindly let me take them. I found there the records taken from the record of Matilda R. King, giving James Robison and Margaret Adams as parents of Joseph Robison who married Cornelia Guinal.

I wrote the President of the Robison-Breck Family Organization and he sent me the record of Joseph Robison, son of James Robinson and Sarah Breck. This record showed that he married Susannah (??) and had four children all born in Milton, Massachusetts. (close to Dorchester), the oldest son being Joseph Cox Robison, whose family group was included. I was convinced then that we had been on the wrong line.

I then wrote to Fonda, Montgomery Co., N.Y and received some records from the Dutch Reformed Church in the vicinity and found that there was no conflict with those records and the records that Aunt Matilda had. There are still many names that I cannot place yet.

In 1869 Matilda Robison King and her husband, Thomas Rice King took what they called a “visiting mission” to Pennsylvania, Michigan and New York. I copied the following from a letter written by Thomas R. King to his son, William, who was on a mission in Hawaii:

“We arrived here at James Bennie’s (Susan's husband) in Michigan on the 10th and found the folks well and pleased to see us but do not want to hear anything about Mormonism. Your Ma was wonderfully disappointed in the looks of your Aunt Susan, can’t believe that she is her sister, has altered so much and then her ideas are so foreign to the principles of truth. Sends her love to Aunt Margaret, would like so much to see her.”

Another letter dated December 19, 1869 from Volney King in Fillmore to his brother William, in Hawaii:

“Received a letter from father and mother last evening. They were at Uncle James Robison’s in Pennsylvania, found him to be an old looking man and in not very good health or spirits, having lost his wife three weeks previous and was living with his daughter. They seemed to have quite an interest in father and mother and quite willing to listen. Aunt Susan Bennie was with them and Joseph, (Joseph V. Robison); Martha stayed in Michigan. Father and Joseph's meeting with quite success in their labors, the people were quite willing to hear and allowed them the Universalist Church to speak in.”

The following is from a letter written from Onondaga, New York to William in Hawaii, dated December 20, 1869:

“Joseph and I held two public meetings near your Uncle James' in Pennsylvania, had a very good congregation.”

I am sure that grandaunt Matilda gathered what genealogical information she could while she was there. I am very grateful to her for the genealogical work she started and the record she left for us to build on.

I have made this explanation to show why we discarded the Robison-Breck line. This line has been adopted by a great many members of the family and I think there are still some who are reluctant to discard it. Well, so much for the “Fall of the House of Breck,” as my brother calls it.

Many have asked what was the original spelling of the name Robison and when the change was made. It would be impossible to say. In the Dutch Reformed Church Records we find Robbison, Robberson, Robison and Robinson.

The marriage of Joseph Robison and Cornelia Guinal is the recorded as Joseph Robertson and Cornelia Quineald. My mother’s oldest brother writing to his Uncle from Crete, Illinois in 1848 signed his name Robinson (as he did all his life) and his father writing on the same sheet of paper signed his name Robison. I think in lots of cases a name was spelled and written the way the clerk thought it sounded.

The first Robison we have any record of on our line is James Robison, who according to Matilda Robison King’s record was of Charlestown, Montgomery County, New York, born about 1740. He married Margaret Adams who died in May 1821. At that time what is now Montgomery County was part of Albany County. Tryson County was formed in 1772 from Albany, then right after the Revolutionary War the name was changed to Montgomery County. The town of Charlestown is now Glen.

As I write I have in my possession information, which may with further research, add several more generations to the Robison Pedigree. This was not obtained through the New York researcher. This information, if proven authentic, will be available to the family members who are interested.

The children of James Robison and Margaret Adams as given in Matilda King’s record and found recorded in the Dutch Reformed Church Records are as follows:

James Jr., born about 1760.

Culbert, born about 1762.

William, born about 1764; married Jane Bussing, June 19, 1786.

Susan, born about 1766; married Christopher Sprung, February 13, 1788.

Joseph, our ancestor, born June 26, 1768; died June 9, 1839; married Cornelia Guinal, January 1, 1794.