BIOGRAPHY: Robert Potter ROBISON, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 121-2
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ROBERT POTTER ROBISON was born near Jenner X Roads, Somerset county, this State, 
on June 19, 1824, and died in Johnstown, this county, on March 3, 1892. He was a 
son of John and Rachel (Potter) Robison. He was of sturdy Scotch ancestry, and 
his father was born on the ocean during the voyage to the United States. The 
family settled in the vicinity of Jenner X Roads. The elder Mr. Robison died 
when the subject of this sketch was yet a mere child, and he was denied the 
privileges of securing more than a knowledge of the mere rudiments of an 
education. He left school when but twelve years of age. He was one of a family 
of three boys: John M., who sought his fortunes in California during the gold 
excitement of 1849, and from which adventure he never returned; William James, a 
farmer, now living in the state of Iowa.
     When a young man, Robert Potter Robison, emigrated west, and located at 
Cadiz, Ohio, where he learned the trade of a cabinetmaker, and after following 
that trade some time in the west, returned to Somerset town, and for a time 
worked at his trade for William B. Coffroth, of that place. In 1850 he came to 
Johnstown and plied his trade under the employ of B. F. Orr, and then after a 
short experience as a clerk in Somerset of about two years, he married and again 
returned to Johnstown, and engaged with the Cambria Iron company as a house 
contractor and builder, building some of the first houses built by that company. 
He held that position with the company for some time, when, because of the 
mechanical skill he had displayed, he was promoted to the pattern department of 
the same company, where he remained up to the breaking out of the Civil War, 
when he entered the service of his country in that memorable conflict. He 
enlisted for the three months' service in 1861, in company G, of the Third 
regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer infantry, as an orderly-sergeant, but before 
the end of this term of enlistment was promoted to second lieutenant. At the end 
of the three months' service he re-enlisted for three years in the famous Fifty-
Fourth regiment, and participated in the many hotly-contested engagements of 
that regiment, and was mustered out a first lieutenant. His military record is 
that of a soldier, who was brave and courageous, and who discharged every duty 
with fidelity, and in such a way as to command the confidence of his superiors, 
and win the respect of his inferiors in arms. Laying down the pursuits of the 
soldier, and returning to those of the civilian, he became one of the founders 
of the Johnstown Mechanical works, with which he remained, perhaps, seven or 
eight years. Then, after three or four years as a sewing-machine agent, he was 
appointed by the governor of the State an auctioneer for the borough of 
Johnstown. At the end of that period he again entered the pattern-making 
department of the Cambria Iron company, where he spent the remainder of his 
days.
     Politically he was a democrat prior to the war, but being a strong anti-
slavery man, became a republican upon the issues of that conflict. Religiously 
he was a member of the Lutheran church, and fraternally a charter member of 
Corona Lodge, No. 999, I. O. O. F., and a respected member of the Union Veteran 
Legion, No. 60. He married in August 1853, Mary J. Shaffer, a daughter of 
Michael Shaffer, of Somerset county, and to this union were born nine children: 
John P., who died when but seven years of age; William Fry, who died August 19, 
1896, at Mt. Clements, Michigan. He was a brick contractor by avocation; Bertha 
J., wife of Willis A. Moses, a merchant tailor, of Johnstown; Campbell, chief 
clerk of the Gautier Department of the Cambria Iron Company's works; Edgar N., 
who married Jennie Boler, and is engaged in the bricklaying business as a 
contractor; Harry, who married Annie Zinges, and is a bricklayer by trade; 
Minnie and Marion, twins, the former the wife of Harry McDowell, a machinist in 
the employ of the Cambria company, and Katie M., the wife of Frank J. McMullen, 
of Model City, New York.