Re: Bugg - and ROBISON's
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In reply to:
Re: Bugg Plantations
Charla Helmers 5/28/07
Dear Charla, I just saw your posting, having not received it back in May.I will gladly tell you more about the Robison's... as that was indeed the way correct way of spelling it, the mis-spellings coming in later years.
The confirmed Robison's were brothers:George Heyward Robison and William Robison, who came from Virginia and settled in the Barnwell district of South Carolina.Their father was probably William.I will gladly share with you what I have about them, but will post a portion of a wonderful article about them, for now.You can contact me at [email protected]
"THE ROBISONS" by George Robison Black
"About 1750 two brothers named WILLIAM and GEORGE ROBISON traveled south from the Colony of Virginia to South Carolina and settled in what is now known as Barnwell County, near the Savannah River.William Robison married Mary Lark and George married Elizabeth Ann Stewart.George Robison Black, a great-great-grandson of both Robison's, wrote in 1863 as follows of the country and the times:
"In these distant days of British loyalty the young colonies had not passed the bloody ordeal of 1776 and the settlers of the wild forests had nothing to fear but the savage and beasts of America.Across the river in Georgia the Indian reigned with scarce an interruption from the white subjects of his Majesty's loyal colonies of Carolina and the wild bear and wolf preyed upon the fattening lamb and calf.This was a frontier district and the hardy settlers leaving their more comfortable homes in the older Colony of Virginia, or distant Europe, cast their lot amid the danger of the red man's tomahawk and the trackless paths of a frontier county.No villages, no farms, no public highways and few commodities of life, they were thrown upon their own resources and became pioneers in the march of civilization.In those days, the Negroes were employed in penning the cattle in their "cup'ens" and kept away the prowling wolf at nightfall by a large bonfire built around the "cuppens" at convenient distances.A thousand calves would be marked and branded in one season and large droves of beef cattle driven to the Charleston market every year.Cotton had not then become a staple production of the country and the quiet life of the country and the quiet life of the farmer was too tame for the occupation of those sturdy huntsmen of the frontier."
"George Robison and his wife had five daughters and one son, George Stewart Robison.He owned a good many slaves, large tracks of grazing lands and immense stocks of cattle.He moved his abode from place to place with his cattle.According to George Robison Black:"George Robison lived to an advanced age and died in 1805.He last left his home on horseback and apparently in good health and was found dead in a small stream, where it is supposed he fell from his horse and died of some sort of apoplexy.He was a large well-formed man of very sociable dispositions and like the old people of that day was fond of his morning grog.
"George Stewart Robison, son of George Robison, was born 1 Jan 1768 in Barnwell District, S.C.He died 3 Sept 1853, at the age of 85.He married his first cousin, Betsey Robison, youngest daughter of his uncle, William Robison, when he was less than 18.George Robison Black, his great grandson, who knew him as a boy, writes of him as follows:
"George Stewart Robison was a man of fine proportions, over six feet of stature, erect and manly in appearance, of ruddy healthy complexion, brown hair and a calm light colored hazel eye.He was a man of even temper, unmoved by feelings of envy or prejudice, generous, kind hearted, and benevolent.While he was a companion of the rich, he was a friend of the poor;while he was frugal in his own household, he gave gifts generously and freely to the needy.He was a man of an eminently conservative disposition, but was passionately fond of amusements of all kinds.A sportsman upon the turf as well as in the field, he kept and raised a great many fast & thoroughbred race horses, and was always known to ride a good horse himself.He horses, Frances, Amander, Gano and Wonder, and others, ran and won purses on the famous courses of Green Pond, Augusta, Columbia, Charleston, Savannah, Macon and other places.He was never known to win or lose any large amounts of money by betting.Many times in his after years have I, as a boy, listened to his conversations as he would narrate the incidents of this boyhood.How the wild oats grew over the hill in the days of his youth, how far the unobstructed pine lands might be penetrated with the eye, now so thickly grown with blackjack and numerous shrubbery and undergrowth.How abundant were the droves of wild deer and the tall stalking wild cranes, the "gannet" that frequented the sand hills of the pine lands and went about in congregations and walked in their long stalking way, like a tall man seeing in the distance and lifting themselves on their long vari-colored wings as you approached them."
"George Stewart Robison owned large tracts of land, consisting of perhaps eight or ten thousand acres.He had a sawmill, propelled by water, of moderate capacity and with yokes of oxen he would haul the 20 foot round logs and reduce them to merchantable timber.It would be taken from the mill to Little Hell Landing, rafted in the river and floated with the current down the river to Savannah, where old A. A. Sonets would see it and return 200 to 500 dollars for each raft.By this means, George Stewart Robison acquired the ready money with which he was wont to lavishly patronize the country stores which in that day enriched Redfield, Scarborough and Furse.These country stores were places of great resort and the chief point of attraction for peoples for miles around.In them was presented to the longing eyes of country dame, urchin, and freeholder, the various articles of merchantable commodities from a knitting needle to a jack knife, from a spool of thread to the costliest silks, from old Jamaica to sparkling champagne.Couple with temptation seductive of unlimited credit and by the crowds of jolly good fellows who were always there and ready to be treated, a generous whole-souled and liberal man of means would be almost sure to be largely in to it for treats.By these means and for these reasons, George Stewart Robison had many large bills to settle at the end of each running year, and for this reason he exhausted the profit of his handsome property, which, with his family, might have increased ten fold.Pole boats, too, were a source of profit to him.Cotton, he knew nothing about, and even in his old days, when everybody else was planting it, he looked upon it with jealously of his usual conservatism.He was never known to ride but once in a wheeled vehicle.One day, William Dunbar invited his old uncle to ride in his gig with him.Suddenly the horse took a fright and capsized the vehicle.Never afterwards was he known to ride in any sort of vehicle. "
"Betsy Robison Robison, his wife, died about 1830.He died in 1853, and was buried by the side of his wife in his plot selected by himself, amid the remains of his children, close by those of his departed loved ones, in the soil of his own premises.This grave yard situated at the Old Place, is near the river swamp about one and a half miles below the old mill site and about two and a half or three miles above Little Hell Landing, or about four miles above the point which is opposite the dividing line between Burke and Screven counties in Georgia.
The tombstone of George Stewart Robison is erroneously engraved "George Heyward Robison".
The BLACK Cemetery is on property now owned by William Morris, III of Augusta, Georgia.It is near Millett off to the right as soon as you cross the railroad tracks near Speedwell Methodist Church.The straight road goes to Little Hell Landing on the Savannah River."