OBEDIENCE ROBINS OF ACCOMACK: 17TH-CENTURY STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS A Thesis MARY CA~ WILHEIT Submitted to the Once of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS December 1997 Major Subject: History OBEDIENCE ROBINS OF ACCOMACK: 17TH-CENTURY STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS A Thesis MARY CA~ WILHEIT Submitted to Texas AyrM University in partial tulfillment of thc requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved as to style and content by. John L. Canup Walter L. Buenger ( hair of Committee) (Member) Dennis A. Berthold Julia Kirk ckvvelder (Member) (Head ol Dcpa nt) December 1997 Major Subject: History ABSTRACT Obedience Robins of Accomack: 17th-Century Strategies for Success. (December 1997) Mary Catherine Wilheit, A. B., Wilson College Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. John L. Canup Obedience Robins emigrated to Virginia in the 1620s in search of the land and status his elder brother gained by inheritance. This thesis establishes motivations for immigration and methods by which one English emigr6 achieved success in Virginia. The 1582 will of Richard Robins established a pattern of primogeniture for successive generations of his Northamptonshire family. Muster lists, wills, parish registers and a 1591 manor survey record increasing prosperity and associated expectations. Robinses were among those "better sorts" who paid taxes, provided armour, held local office, educated their children, and protcstcd against perceived government injustice. In Virginia. Richard Robins*s great grandson parlayed his assets into land, office and status. The extent of his education and financial resources was probably limited, but good health, timing. ability and hard work brought him respect, a seat on the governor's council, and his chddren's marriages within a coalescing Eastern Shore gentry. Robins's career in America paraHcled that of his brother in England. Both abandoned their father's yeoman designation to become gentlemen in their own and their peers' estimations. Obedience Robins combined public office with private enterprise and agriculture with trade for social and economic security. The commonwealth period did not disrupt Virginia's colonial hierarchy. Robins and his fellow justices, militia officers and burgesses retained their positions within a framework of transported English institutions. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT. TABLE OF CONTENTS. IV CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND IDENTIFICATION II ENGLISH ORIGINS. III VIRGIMA. 30 IV LEGACY AND CONCLUSION. 75 REFERENCES. 87 VITA. 98 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND IDENTIFICATION Seventeenth-century New Englanders' origins and their New World experiences, including continued communication with England through family, friends, and business interests, are well- ' documented, but no comparable comprehensive studies illuminate contemporary Virginia society. The significance of emigrants' family and economic backgrounds, motivations, and continued trans-Atlantic familial and business connections has proved tfitficult to assess at all levels of society. This thesis reconstructs the ci~nces that led to the emigration of one seventeenth-century Englishman, and the methods he employed to exploit colonial opportunities. Obedience Robins, a native of Northamptonshire, emigrated to Virginia in 1626 or 1627. He lefi no writings and court depositions render second-hand versions of only a few of his statements. Nevertheless, Robins appears frequently in lustoncal studies. most often in conjunction with non-conformist activity, kinship networks, and land ownership. Students of colonial Virginia readily recognize his name, although confusion marks his parentage, birth place and year of emigration. Firm establishment of identity presents opportunities to assess ftunily size, status, wealth, educational opportunities and assumption of civic rcsponsibilitics, all factors affecting a decision to emigrate and subsequent behavior. Robins and his extended family are not a rich source of personal commentary, but public records provide the framework on which to reconstruct one individual's English midlands background, and his active role in the formation of a colonial Virginia society. Establishment of Robins's identity is requisite to further discussion. This chapter presents cumulative and conclusive cvidencc that Obcdicnce Robins of Accomack, Virginia was the second son of Richard Robins of Long Buckby, and permits exploration of a family background that includes four generations of Northamptonshirc landowners. Citations in this thesis follow thc format of The g't'lliam and Maiy Quarterly ' David Cressy's Coming Over: Migration and Coimnuni cation Between England and iyew England in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1987), documents continuity of communication between settlers and their English connections. Bren( Tarter asks for this" type of information for Virginia, spccifically who came and why, in "The New Virginia Bookshelf, Vi rgi nta Magazine of Hi story and Biography, hereafier I7vfHB, 104 (1996), 14 Obedience Robins patented at least 4, 450 acres on Virginia's Eastern Shore, and served as vestryman, county court commissioner, commantkr, and burgess. Historians identify his parents as either Thomas and Mary Bulkley (or Brackley) Robins of Bracldey, Northamptonshire, or Richard (II)' and Dorothy Rushall Robins, of Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, ' and his date ofbirth as 1600 or 1601. Most oflen, Obedience Robins is described simply as a native of Northamptonshire, and credited with the influence to give the name of his English birthplace to the Virginia peninsula to which he and his brother Edward migrated. Richard (II) Robins's will' and the possibility that he owned a share in the ' Virginia Company, family naming patterns, a 1659 bill of sale, and a communication from Richard (HI) Robins in Virginia records, ' verify that Robins was the son of Richard (II) Robins, of Long Buckby. Richard (H) Robins's will, written in 1633/4, mentions his wife and each of his surviving nine children (a daughter, Dorithy, christened in 1610, died in 1624. )" His son and heir, Richard (III), received all remaining "lands, goods, cattells tk chattills" after varying sums were left to the poor, four " daughters, "all my grandchildren, and his wife. John and Thomas, the third and fifth sons, " received legacies of land and cash. The remaining legacies, of one hundred pounds each, are to Obcdicncc and Edward, thc second and fourth sons. " It seems reasonable to infer that cash bequests, ivithout mention George B. Curtis, "Thc Colonial County Court, Social Forum and Legislative Precedent: Accomac County, Virginia, 1633-1639, "VVHB, 85 (1977), 274. 4, 450 is the accepted total. Actual acreage is 4, 850. See below, 67. " ' For example, Lothrop Withington, "Minutes ol the Council and General Court, J7y111B 28 (1920), 326; Nora Miller Turman, The Eastern, Shore of Virginio, 1603-1964 (Onancock, Virginia, 1964), 19: and James Horn, Adapnng to a ¹wWorld (Chapel Hill, 1994), 56. ' Seventeenth-century records, the Northampton Public Record Oflice, hereafier NPRO, and genealogists use tlus method to distinguish among three Richard Robinses of Long Buckby, and it will be continued here. " ' Thomas T. Upshur, "Eastern Shore History, VMHB 9 (1901), 94. ' NPRO, E V. Northamptonshire Wills, First Series, 1634-1636, 91-95, Will of Richard (H) Robins ' NPRO, ZB563-22, photo of original conveyance; transcription in Thomas Robins, "The Facts of a " 'Family: Robyn 1377 to Robins 1939. (typescript, Library of Congress, 1939), 53. James Handley Marshall, ed. , Abstracts of the Wills and Adininistrations ofb/orthampton County, Virginia 1632-1602 (Camden, Me. , 1994), 8. R. L. Grccnall, cd. , Jhe Parisb Begistei oft ong Bockbg hereafter PBLB (Leicester, Eng. , 1971), 22, records "Baptisms 1601, Apr 26 Obedience s Richard Robbens et ux" The NPRO holds the original, Buckby Parish Register, Folio 20 A, but all references will be to Greenall's transcription. "'"Jbid, 39. Ibid. , 22, 29; Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints International Genealogical Index (hereafler LDSIGI), Northamptonshire, Eng. fiche pp. 5540, 5545; Will ol'Richard (II) Robins. LDSIGI, 5542, 5538. of lands or leases, reflect Obedience's six-year absence in Virginia and Edward's residence in London. Larger legacies to the sons who remained in Northamptonshire might also reflect earlier expenditures on schooling or apprenticeships, Obedience's to an apothecary, and Edward's to a merchant. Richard (III) Robins, son and heir of Richard (H) Robins, had seven children; one son, Richard (IV), and six daughters, including Grace, the fourth daughter and fifth child. " Three daughters, Dorothy, Mary and Elizabeth, are probable namesakes of aunts, a grandmother, and a great- grandmother. There are no readily apparent family antecedents for the names Ann, Grace and Jemimah, but it is possible that Grace Robins, for whom we have no birth date, "but who married John Moerton in 1662, ' was named for Grace Neale Waters Robins, the wife of Obedience, in Virginia. Edward Waters, ' Grace Neale's first husband, died at Great Hornemead, Hertfordshire in 1630. Four children of Obechence and Grace, Dorothy, John, Mary, and Obedience, continue immediate family names, while the ' ' name of the fifth child, Francis, appears among Robinses in the Long Buckby Parish register. The prospect of land ownership was a powerfttl incentive for New World migration. Two '" Robinses are listed among shareholders in the Virginia Company in 1618/19