John Robinson (ca. 1825-1908)

MJ-6

John Robinson (born John Lipscomb), a free person of color from Cumberland Co., was a wagoner and landowner before the Civil War. Twice attacked by White men in 1864, he fled to Amelia Co. and later used the local courts to convict many of his attackers and defend his property rights. An active Republican during Reconstruction, he was one of 24 African Americans elected to serve in Virginia’s Constitutional Convention of 1867-68, where he voted with radical reformers. As a state senator (1869-73), he helped set up Virginia’s new public school system and voted to ratify the 14th and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. For 30 years he owned and operated the Effingham House tavern near here.

Department of Historic Resources, 2024

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

John Robinson, Free Negro Registration, 10 April 1851. Cumberland County Personal Property Tax records, 1860-1862. Staunton Spectator, 5 Nov. 1867. Richmond Daily State Journal, 1 June 1872. Richmond Planet, 25 Jan. 1908. Sally Phillips and Dictionary of Virginia Biography, “John Robinson (1825 or 1826–1908),” Encyclopedia Virginia (7 Dec. 2020): https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/robinson-john-1825-or-1826-1908 Ellen D. Katz, “African American Freedom in Antebellum Cumberland County, Virginia,” https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2979&context=cklawreview Luther P. Jackson, Free Negro Office-Holders in Virginia, 1867–1892 (Norfolk: Guide Quality Press, 1945), 35–36. Dale Glenwood Robinson, Cumberland County (Virginia) Isbell, Lipscomb, Johns and Coleman: Ancestry of Henry Edgar Robinson (self-published, 2020).