Biographical Sketches

William James Robinson

WILLIAM JAMES ROBINSON, the Message Clerk of the Senate, resides at Erie, Pa.  He was born in Leboeuf, Erie County, March 7, 1854, of Scotch-Irish ancestry.  His father, William Robinson, and his mother, Ann Eliza Ford, were natives of Erie County.  His grandfather, John Robinson, was born in County Cork, Ireland, emigrating to this country about the year 1800 and settled in Eastern Pennsylvania.  In 1805 he removed to Erie County and bought a large tract of land in Leboeuf Township.  Subsequently he built a distillery and continued in that business for many years.  His great-grandfather on the maternal side was Captain Robert King, a soldier and officer in the Revolutionary War and a personal friend of General Lafayette.  Captain King had also rendered the State valuable service in securing treaties with the Indians, as a reward for which the Legislature of Pennsylvania voted him "400 acres of land west of the Allegheny River."  Captain King was the first actual settler in Erie County, having removed there from Lycoming County in 1794.  Mr. Robinson was educated in the public and select schools of Mill Village, Pa., and subsequently completed a commercial course.  His boyhood was spent on the farm.  In 1877 he engaged in general merchandising in Mill Village, near the place of his birth, and continued in active business for ten years.  He bought, in 1890, an interest in the Erie daily and weekly Dispatch and in April of the following year became the general manager of the Dispatch Publishing Company, limited.  Under his management the company bought the old Erie Gazette, and established, in 1892, the Erie evening News.  On September 1, 1894, Mr. Robinson sold his newspaper interests and organized the Dispatch Printing and Engraving Company, becoming the president and manager of that company.  He is also of the firm of Robinson & Sawdey, real estate and insurance agents.  Mr. Robinson early took an active part in political affairs.  Casting his first vote for General Hartranft for Governor in 1875, he was the following year elected a member of the Erie County Republican Executive Committee and has since been continuously identified with the organization, serving as secretary for three years and chairman one term.  In 1886 he was elected treasurer of Erie County, serving three years.  Was a delegate to the Republican State Convention of 1879, 1887 and 1889.  He belongs to the "stalwart" element of the Republican Party, inheriting much of his zeal for the party from his father, who was a Whig and an uncompromising Republican.

Source: Transcription from the book, Portraits and Sketches of Heads of State Departments and Members of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, compiled by Wm. Rodearmel, published in 1895; located on the website, Hathitrust Digital Library (http://www.hathitrust.org), accessed 14 January 2026.

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