This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Robinson, DeWitt Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/3cDBAIB/8187 Message Board Post: America's Successful Men of Affairs: An Encyclopedia of Contemporaneous Biography Volume I R John Davison Rockefeller page 549 JEREMIAH POTTER ROBINSON, merchant, born Aug. 18, 1819, in South Kingston, R. I., died in Brooklyn, Aug. 26, 1886. His family had been residents of Rhode [p.549] Island for many generations and one of his ancestors Governor of the State. His father was captain of a ship in the trade with China. Brought up as a child on his grandfather's farm, the boy left at the age of twelve to become a clerk and bookkeeper for his uncle, Stephen A. Robinson, a grocer in Newport. In less than three years, he returned to the farm. In 1836, he came to New York with $50 in money and, after a long search, found employment with E. P. & A. Woodruff, merchants of fish, provisions, groceries and salt. Hard work resulted at the end of four years in his admission to partnership, the firm finally taking the name of A. Woodruff & Robinson. Having become interested in the warehouse business, the firm gradually abandoned all their former trade, except the importation of salt. Later, he engaged in the sto! rage business for himself under the name of J. P. & G. C. Robinson. The firm are known at present as J.P. Robinson & Co. About 1843, Mr. Robinson entered upon the development of the South Brooklyn water front, where he bought large blocks of unimproved land and built warehouses and piers. The Robinson stores were built by him. A few years later, with William Beard, he began to develop the region now known as the Erie Basin but sold his interest therein later to Mr. Beard. Mr. Robinson was a director and first president of the Brooklyn Bridge and a friend of every other enterprise having in view the welfare of Brooklyn. He belonged to the Chamber of Commerce, the Produce and Maritime Exchanges, and the Brooklyn and Hamilton clubs. By his marriage with Elizabeth De Witt, of Cranberry, N.J., he was the father of four children, Isaac R., Jeremiah P., Elizabeth De Witt, and Harriet W.