Christopher Robinson (burgess)

Christopher Robinson was a Virginia-born planter and politician who followed the path of his merchant and emigrant father, Col. Christopher Robinson, the patriarch of the Robinson family of Virginia.[1]

His father, a member of the Governor's Council for many years, died when he was twelve, so he had a guardian, then finished his education at William and Mary College in Williamsburg, which had become the colony's seat of government.

Upon reaching legal age, Robinson inherited his father's lands in several counties in Virginia's Tidewater region, which he farmed using enslaved labor. He also followed his father's career path by serving in the House of Burgesses, representing Middlesex County for a decade.[2]

In 1703, he married the former Judith Wormely, the daughter of Col. Christopher Wormeley (who had served on the Governor's Council until his death in 1698) and widow of both William Beverley and Corbin Griffin, likewise all of the First Families of Virginia. They had seven children, of whom their first- and last-born sons Christopher Robinson Jr. (1705-1768) and Peter Robinson (1718-1765) would also continue the family's planter and political traditions. Their middle son John Robinson (1708-1787) married Miss Yates, then Miss Churchill. Otherwise, their eldest daughter became the first wife of Col. Barclay, their second daughter died aged about 5 years, and only birth dates are known for the second Judith (born 1711), Benjamin (born 1707), William (born 1716 and still alive in 1765) and Frances (born 1714), so they either died as infants or moved away.[3]