ROBBINS, James William

Prescott Journal Miner, Prescott, Arizona Monday, October 18, 1937, page 2, column 1 Robbins Burial Is Set Tuesday An old-timer, who came to Prescott by ox team in 1876 - 61 years ago - will be laid at rest in the family plot at Citizens' cemetery Tuesday afternoon when James William Robbins, father of Sheriff Robert M. Robbins is buried. The services are scheduled for 4 o'clock in the chapel of the Lester Ruffner Funeral Home. In charge will be the Rev. E. A. Anderson of the First Baptist church. The elder Robbins died at 8 o'clock Saturday night in the Arizona Pioneers' Home, which he entered October 19, 1918, almost 19 years ago. He has been in comparatively good health until two weeks ago when he suffered a sinking spell which produced unconsciousness for several hours before his death. Besides the sheriff, he is survived by three other children, Mrs. Walter E. Davis and Mrs. D. L. Wedmore of Miller Valley and a son, Willis W. Robbins of Los Angeles, who is here. Other survivors include 19 grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. He was born in Rome, Ga., on September 8, 1850, the son of James Franklin Robbins who had 19 children altogether, seven by his first wife and 12 by his second wife. James William Robbins was the last of the children by the first wife to pass on. In the spring of 1876 James William Robbins set out with his wife and two children (Mrs. Wedmore then 5, and Mrs. Davis, then 2 years of age) from Jasper, Ark., in an emigrant train powered by oxen. Two other Robbins families were in the same pioneer argosy, James Franklin Robbins and son, William (an uncle of the Prescott man). They were four months and nine days on the road, but might have made it much quicker had it not been for the fact that the train was held up at the first army post, then that one, due to Indians who periodically were on the warpath in those days. Fort Wingate, N. Mex., was one place where they stopped. They halted by Stoneman's lake, where the father and the two younger Robbins men went out hunting for deer and turkey, which could almost be knocked over with a stick they were so plentiful then. After they had made their kill they headed back for camp but a thick fog suddenly set in upon them. Instead of becoming panicky, they just sat down and waited until a breeze cam up and cleared the fog. It so happened that they were just a few hundred yards from camp, which they could see from where they had been sitting. Another stop was at Montezuma's Well, in which James William Robbins remembered in after years he had washed his feet. Upon reaching here August 24, 1876, the Robbins families built themselves some log cabins south of the village of Prescott, at a place now within boundaries of the Hassayamapa Mountain club. Nearby was the know of a hill protruding itself above the forest, which was know for a number of years as Robbins' Knob. After three years he and his Uncle William moved their families to what now is Idylwild. The home in which the John Post family resided was the old James William Robbins home. Mrs. Davis and her father set out the four big trees still growing in the yard. Instead of going to Idylwild with the other two, the father, James Franklin, went out to the Granite mountain country. He and William were the first in this county to start to graze cattle around here. Their brand was '76' presumably because it was in 1876 that they arrived here. In 1922, the father and William moved over to California. James William Robbins stayed on and ranched for years out there in Idylwild. Six more children were born in Prescott. He was a man with an enormous chest and the strongest of hearts. The fact that he never would use liquor or tobacco is believed by his children to be one of the reasons for his longevity. He was 87 at the time of his death; his father, 89 when he died in 1918. By faith he was a Baptist.