Parker David Robbins

This is Mr. Parker David Robbins, he was a free person of Indigenous American and African descent, and he constructed the steamboat Saint Peter in 1888.

Born in 1834 in either Colerain Township, Bertie County, North Carolina or the Choanoac Indian community of Gates County, North Carolina.
The Bertie County native was among the 30,000 free Blacks living in the state in 1860.

Robbins’s career yielded many accomplishments as a successful boatbuilder, farmer, politician, soldier, mechanic, inventor, carpenter, and postmaster.

He was one of 15 African Americans elected to the state’s 1868 constitutional convention, a member of the state house of representatives, and a sergeant major in the Second United States Colored Cavalry.

He was the son of John A. Robbins; his mother's name is unknown. He was considered a mulatto with Chowan Indian ancestors, and he was regarded as a free Black. He had a common school education and before the Civil War he acquired a 102-acre farm, in part with money earned as a carpenter and a mechanic.

After the Civil War began, Robbins left Bertie County In 1863 and went to Norfolk, Va. then went to Fort Monroe, Virginia and on January 1, 1864, at the age of 29.

He enlisted as a Private with the Union Colored Troops and was appointed Sergeant Major on January 11, 1864 in the Second Regiments of the United States Colored Cavalry He was active until mustered out at Brazos Santiago, Texas, on February 12, 1866 due to illness.

Returning to his home in the Colerain Township, Bertie County, he was one of fifteen Blacks elected to the 1868 constitutional convention, the delegates gathered in Raleigh, NC on Jan 14.

He also was one of nineteen Blacks elected to the 1869–70 term in the state house of representatives.

The 1870 census recorded him as a 35-year-old farmer in a household consisting of 29-year-old Elizabeth, presumably his wife, whose occupation was housekeeper, and a 17-year-old mulatto female whose name is illegible in the manuscript census.

Under the national Republican administration, Robbins was named postmaster of the town of Harrellsville. While holding this position he invented and secured a patent for a new kind of cotton cultivator and a device to sharpen saws.

In 1877, with the return of Democrats to power, he resigned as postmaster and soon afterwards moved to Duplin County, where he established a sawmill and a cotton gin. While there he built a steamboat, the St. Peter , which plied the Cape Fear River. He also built some houses in the town of Magnolia.

There is a photograph of Robbins in military uniform in the State Archives, Raleigh.
The 1917 death certificate for Robbins indicates that he was married and that he was buried in his home burial ground.

He was 83 years old when he died on Nov. 1, in the community of Magnolia, in Duplin, NC. He was buried in the Parker Robbins Cemetery in Magnolia, Duplin NC.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_David_Robbins