There's a lot to this story and I'm trying to get this up on the blog quickly...I should never rush a post...but I've got some family members I've met only of Facebook who would like to see some of the data I've compiled on the past 15 years or so.
I'll begin this post with a quick story on my 4th great grandfather. Hezekiah was born, probably in Virginia. Exactly where is a mystery but it might even be that part of Virginia that is now West Virginia. His year of birth was sometime between 1777 and 1784, the discrepancy due to what he reported on various records and what is inscribed on his gravestone. His gravestone....more on that later!
Hezekiah joined Andrew Jackson's East Tennessee Volunteers and served in the War of 1812. He left his you wife at home with their 2 sons. Anne Grantham took sick and died shortly after Hezekiah returned home. He then soon married his sister-in-law, Tabitha. This was a common practice which was clearly beneficial to the children and also freed Hezekiah to farm what became about 660 acres of land just over the Tennessee line from Giles County to Limestone County, Alabama.
The area is known as Robinson Hollow, where Robinson Road runs right through it. It's also where you can find Hezekiah's resting place in the Robinson Cemetery. According to the gravestone, he died in 1852 at age 75 and here's where the odd spelling "ROBRSON" comes from: That's what's inscribed on the stone in the Robinson Cemetery!
The vagaries of how to spell "ROBINSON" continued for generations. When the widow Tabitha applied for her War of 1812 Widow's pension, she was denied many times. The correspondence clearly shows that even Hezekiah wasn't consistent. Various records use at least three spellings of the name: "Robinson", "Robertson" and "Robison". And of course, there's the gravestone! Tabitha's efforts to collect her pension as a widow of a veteran of the War of 1812 was thwarted for a number of years. I have copies of the correspondence form the National Archives showing how many times her claim was rejected. She outlived the denials and managed to collect for a couple of years before she died in 1884 on their farm in Robinson Hollow, Limestone County, Alabama.
[caption id="attachment_1296" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
...or is it Robertson. Or maybe Robison?- English: The signature of Andrew Jackson. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]
