Among the soldiers present at Braddock's defeat at Fort Duquesne, near Pittsburgh, was John Decker Robison, an American of Scotch descent, who also did good service during the Revolutionary war. When the war was over he married a Hollander living on the North River, and when a young family grew up about him, moved to western New York, where, building the first house in Canandaigua, he received a patent of six hundred acres of land and settled down as a farmer in Vienna, N. Y. One of his family was a boy, Peter Robison, who stuck to the farm until the ex-Revolutionary soldier had gone down to the tomb, and until he himself had reached several years beyond the meridian of life, when he obeyed the general law of American human nature, and moved toward the setting sun. Years before this step was taken he had married Miss Hetty H. Havens, of Lyons, N. Y., and raised a family of children, among them J. P. Robison, the subject of this sketch, who was born in Ontario county, on the 23rd of January, 1811.

Like his father, young Robison spent the earlier years of his life in working on the farm, and it was not until his sixteenth year that it was decided to give him a good education. He was then sent to Niffing's High School, at Vienna, N. Y., where he attained considerable proficiency in his studies, including Latin and Mathematics. Having developed a taste for medical studies he was admitted as a private pupil of Professer Woodward, of the Vermont College of Medicine, and graduated in November, 1831. Immediately on the completion of his studies he moved into Ohio and commenced practice in Bedford, Cuyahoga county, in February, 1832. He soon succeeded in building up a good practice, and for eleven years continued in the exercise of his profession.

[Illustration: Yours Truly, J. P. Robison]

Then Dr. Robison concluded to change his business. In company with W. B. Hillman he engaged in mercantile business at Bedford, opening a store and at the same time carrying on other descriptions of trade, such as milling, packing provisions, dealing in land, and other operations such as the speculative American is always ready to engage in. Among other things he started a chair factory and a tannery, and his active mind was always revolving projects for the increase of business, and, of course, of business profits.

But, whilst his hands were full of all kinds of business enterprises, Dr. Robison found abundant leisure for a different kind of occupation. He was an intimate friend and associate of Alexander Campbell, the leader of the Disciple movement, and organized a congregation of this faith in Bedford, which he preached to for sixteen years. When he commenced his ministerial labors in Bedford, (from whom, at no time, did he receive fee or reward,) his congregation numbered less than a dozen, but when he closed his term of service as a voluntary minister he left for his successor a congregation numbering four hundred and forty, showing conclusively that his ministering had not been in vain. Nor was his zeal for the faith as understood by the Disciples content with preaching during this long term of service. His purse was always ready for the calls of the church, and, in company with Alexander Campbell, he traveled from place to place throughout a great part of Ohio, addressing the vast concourses called together by the fame of the Disciple leader, then in the plenitude of his power and influence as a preacher and teacher. In these gatherings and in such company Dr. Robison enriched his mind and developed a great talent for extemporaneous address and discussion. Of a positive nature he brought strong earnestness and unflagging energy to the work in which he was engaged, and carried his hearers with him, as he himself was frequently borne away by the enthusiasm of his subject. The same earnestness and energy which made him so successful as a preacher served to make him popular and effective on the political platform, and in the cause of the soldiers of the Union in recent years. During the war he was active in procuring volunteers for the Union army, and whenever an effort was made to aid the cause of the Union Dr. Robison was among the foremost in the work. In politics Dr. Robison was an old Clay Whig. After the demolition of that party he voted with the Democrats. In 1861, he was chosen to the State Senate by the union of the War Democrats and Republicans, receiving the largest vote for any senator from this county. Since that time he has voted with the Republican party. His Senatorial career was highly honorable to himself and of value to his constituents, who found in him a faithful, active and intelligent representative.

It is as a packer of provisions that Dr. Robison has been for many years chiefly known. For twenty-five years he had been associated with General O. M. Oviatt in the packing business at Cleveland, and the brand of the firm had grown to be recognized everywhere as thoroughly reliable. In 1865, this partnership was dissolved, and Dr. Robison continued the business at first alone and afterwards in company with Archibald Baxter of New York. The scarcity of fat cattle in this vicinity compelled him in 1866 to remove his principal packing house to Chicago, where he continues to operate heavily, the amount paid out for cattle during the last season being over $300,000. In addition to the Chicago packing he has continued the work in Cleveland, and also for several years did something in that line at Lafayette, Indiana. The firm's brand, "The Buckeye", is well known and highly esteemed both in the United States and England, to which provisions bearing that mark are largely shipped.

Had Dr. Robison continued his practice as a physician he would undoubtedly have attained eminence in his profession, a leading physician having frequently borne testimony to his extraordinary skill in diagnosing disease, and urged him to devote his entire attention to his profession. But he preferred curing beef and pork to curing human bodies, and, so far as financial results are concerned, probably made a wise choice, though the judgment of human nature and insight into men's motives to which he attributes his success, would have served him in good stead in either line. At the age of fifty-eight, Dr. Robison is found in possession of a handsome competency, although he has all through life dealt with marked liberality toward all worthy objects of charity and patriotism. He is still in possession of much of the vigor that has characterized his business career, and we trust his life of usefulness may yet be long.

[Illustration: Yours Truly, T. P. Handy]