Colonel Jephthah RobinsCol. Jephthah Robins has for many years been a most conspicuous and influential member of the bar of Mississippi, and is worthy of mention in this record of the men who have been important factors in the development and cultivation of the resources of the state. He is a native of Pickens district, S.C., born in 1814, and is a son of Albert and Susan (Norton) Robins, natives of South Carolina and Virginia respectively. Albert kRobins was a son of Michael Robins, a native of North Carolina, and a farmer by occupation. When Albert was a mere lad his father removed to Greenville Courthouse, S.C. The father was one of a family of eight sons and four daughters. He and all his brothers were soldiers in the Revolutionary war. he lived to the allotted age of man, three score and ten years. He reared a family of four sons and four daughters, all of whom lived to be grown. Albert was next to the youngest child, and was reared in South Carolina, where he resided until 1841. He then came to Fulton, Miss., where he lived at the time of his death, in 1849; he was seventy-eight years of age. His wife died two years later at about the same age. She was a consistent member of the Baptist church. To them were born three children: Levi died in South Carolina; Mrs. Arminda Copeland died in Fulton, Miss.; the Colonel was the second born. He passed his youth in South Carolina, and received his education in the common schools. When he had reached his twentieth year he went to Moulton, Ala., where he clerked in a dry goods store for one year. Thence he went to Fulton, Miss., in 1836, and there he was employed as a clerk for some time. He then engaged in the mercantile trade on his own account, and while in this business, he was elected treasurer of the county of Itawamba. After discharging the duties of this office for one term he was elected probate clerk for two years. he was then made clerk of the chancery court, the district comprising Itawamba, Monroe, Chickasaw and Tishomingo counties. He held this office eight years, and during that time he read law, and was admitted to the bar at Aberdeen, Judge Rogers presiding. He practiced his profession at Fulton until 1852, when he came to Lee county, and located at Guntown. For several years he devoted himself industriously to the law, but of late years, he has paid more attention to agriculture, and has turned his practice over to his son, John Quitman Robins, a partner of the Hon. John M. Allen. Colonel Robins was attorney for the Mobile & Ohio railroad, which position brought him many duties, and he still attends to all legal matters pertaining to the road. He is a man well read in all points of law and every class of literature. He is aman of rare judgement, quick insight and keep observation. He has won a wide reputation and his ability is recognized in all legal circles throughout the South. He was married to Eliza D. Allen, a sister of the Hon. J.M. Allen, a native of Virginia (See sketch of John M. Allen). Nine children were born to this union, one of whom is deceased: Mrs. Belle Gore, Mrs. Molliue Allen, John Q., Jephthah (deceased), William, James, Edwin, Annie and Harrison Lamar. The younger children are now attending some of the best educational institutions of the South, and all have had superior advantages in that line. Colonel Robins served on detached duty during the late Civil war, and was on intimate terms with Jefferson Davis, McNutt, Foote, Prentiss and Poindexter. He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Aberdeen, but the lodge is no longer in existence. He and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church. The Colonel is a selfmade man, and is fully deserving of the honors that have been conferred upon him, and entirely worthy of the high regard in which he is held in the state.Abstracted from an 1891 edition of Goodspeed's History of Mississippi
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