Absalom Parker Robinson

A shorter, cited version of this story is also on the blog: "The Salesman from Des Arc."

His Story

Absalom Parker Robinson came into the world around 1856 or 1857 in Missouri — exactly when and where is not known, because his earliest years left no documentary trace. His biological parents, both from Tennessee, died when he was very young. He and his brother Alexander were separated and sent to live with different families. Absalom was taken in by Isaac Robinson of Iron County, Missouri — an older man who appears in the 1860 census with a child listed as "Apsa," age five, born Missouri. That child was almost certainly Absalom.

Whether Isaac Robinson was Absalom's guardian or his biological father has been an open research question. The family oral tradition — that Absalom's parents died young and the children were placed with other families — could describe either an informal adoption or a situation where a widowed or absent father placed his children in relatives' households. AncestryDNA ThruLines shows DNA matches connecting to Isaac's other documented children, including daughters from an earlier marriage who were not related to Absalom's mother — meaning those matches would carry Isaac's DNA through a completely separate branch of the tree. That kind of corroborating signal, coming through paths independent of Absalom's own line, points toward Isaac as a biological ancestor rather than a legal or informal guardian. One honest complication: because every research path through this family eventually runs through John Wesley Robinson and his wife Katie Lewis, it's fair to ask whether some of that shared DNA could be coming from the Lewis side rather than the Robinson side. Checking the matches' own family trees directly hasn't turned up any Lewis ancestry so far — but most of those trees are quite shallow, so that check is reassuring, not conclusive. The conclusion is probable, not proven: Isaac Robinson was most likely Absalom's biological father, not only the man who raised him.

He grew up in Iron County and as a young man moved to St. Francois County, where on March 22, 1878, he married Josephine Parks at the home of a justice of the peace in Perry Township. Their son John Wesley Robinson was born two years later. Absalom worked as a farm laborer in his early years, and eventually became a traveling salesman for the Singer Sewing Machine Company — covering the creek bottoms and hollows of southeast Missouri on a circuit that took him through the same communities where he had spent his whole life. A 1929 newspaper notice places him in the Peola community when he was roughly seventy-one years old, still making his rounds: "A. B. Robinson, the Singer Sewing Machine Salesman, was on our creek last Friday."

Absalom died on June 17, 1936, at the Doniphan home of his son Delbert, where he had apparently been living for some months — a December 1935 newspaper item already places him ill there, with Delbert (from Doniphan) and his son J. W. Robinson (from Sullivan) visiting him. He was returned to Des Arc for burial, with funeral services at Pentecost Church conducted by Rev. Nolan, and was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Des Arc — the same ground where so many of the families woven through this history would eventually come to rest. One thread in his story remains unresolved. Family oral history, passed down through a descendant of his brother Alexander, holds that as an adult Absalom once encountered a man he suspected might be his lost brother and asked him to remove his shoes. He was looking for a childhood scar on the foot. The man had it. The brothers recognized each other. The full story of how they were separated and how they found each other again is a piece of this family's history that the records uncovered so far cannot tell — though other records may exist, waiting to be found by someone who looks further.

Name Variations in Records

Census takers, clerks, and engravers rendered his name differently across 50+ years of records:

Surname also appears as:

Death certificate: Absolam Parker Robinson. Headstone: A B Robinson. 1880 Census: A. P. Robison. Roxanna Robison, a descendant of Ab's brother Alexander, spells the surname Robison. All the same family.

Vital Facts

Children

ARN0000029 1900 Census (children count) · View record

Census Timeline

Pattern: Missouri listed as birthplace on every single adult record across 50+ years (1880–1936). This is consistent and deliberate, not an error.

All Source Records

WikiTree & FamilySearch Notes

WikiTree: Profile Robinson-10159 is a merged profile combining records for both Absoloms. A commenter (Anonymous Cope, April 2016) flagged the error. The profile currently lists parents as John A Robinson and Mary Polly Manis — these are Dock's parents, not our Ab's.

FamilySearch: Person ID LZ6L-PCJ carries the same incorrect parentage. The tree shows grandparents Ezekiel Robinson and Hannah Couch — this is Dock's lineage.

Connections to Other Profiles

• Son: John Wesley Robinson (1880–1941) — blacksmith of Des Arc, married Katie Lewis
• Daughter-in-law: Katie Lewis Robinson (1878–1946) — daughter of William John "Uncle Billy" Lewis
• Granddaughter: Opal Robinson Rayfield (1911–2002) — married Vernon Rayfield
• Featured in: The Rayfields — A Family History, Chapter 6: "The Salesman from Des Arc"