john riley robinson; part 7

Llandaff c. 1878 home of John Robinson at Easton, MD.

Seventh and final installment in a series about the man who built Oak Hill Cottage
According to Steve Wilson, director emeritus of the Museum of the Great Plains, the revolutionary Adolfo Ibarra occupied Batopilas on July 23, 1872, and jailed John Robinson for five days. On Dec. 17, 1871, the company had paid a forced loan of $6,000, and in July 1872, Ibarra imposed a loan of $100,000. He got $15,918, and another $3,000 in silver. The revolutionaries took over the mine and mill and took another $207,180.

After Batopilas, Robinson went on to discover and develop silver mines in the Santa Eulalia district of Chihuahua, and formed the Don Enrique Mining Co. , at Cusihuiriachick, and the Santa Eulalia Silver Mining Co., with headquarters at Hacienda Robinson. He sold the companies in 1890.

At about the time of the sale of the Batopilas mine in 1879, Robinson built a new home, Llandaff, in the Queen Anne style at Easton, MD. The estate stayed in the family for 127 years and like Oak Hill Cottage is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Jane, his first wife, died in 1883 and Robinson married Katherine Taylor in 1885. John Robinson’s obituary in the New York Times, on his death May 9, 1892 sketches the broad outlines of his adventurous and prosperous life.

“Long John Robinson Dead. Baltimore, May 9 …John R. Robinson came from Florida on Saturday to his home, Llandaff Farm, Bailey’s Neck. He was then a very sick man, and died to-day, aged eighty-two years. An Easton (MD.) dispatch to the Baltimore Sun says: Mr. Robinson has been for many years a conspicuous figure in large business and financial operations in this country and Mexico. ‘Long John’ Robinson was well known in Wall Street, New York. …His first business venture of importance was the construction of the first railroad built in Ohio, that from Columbus to Sandusky.”

“He was manager of the great line of stages that was run between Fort Smith, Ark., and San Francisco. During the civil war Mr. Robinson went to Mexico and developed a silver mine which paid 12 percent a month for several years to its New York stockholders. Mr Robinson later got possession of other mines in Chihuahua…”