(Photograph of Henry R. Robey from Glen Holmes's compilation of "Robey Family History," Courtesy of R. Brooks Robey.)
Henry Richard Robey was born in Fredericksburg on July 26, 1810 to Richard Robey and the former Ann Jones. Richard served in the American Revolution and participated in the siege of Yorktown in 1781.
(Page 660 of "Virginia Silversmiths, Jewelers, Watch and Clock Makers, 1697-1860, " by Catherine B. Hollan. Hollan Press, 2010. Courtesy of R. Brooks Robey.)
Henry was an energetic young man with good business sense, and by the age of 20 he was in the grocery business in Fredericksburg with jeweler James R. Johnson. This enterprise did not last long, as Mr. Johnson moved to Richmond to try his luck there. Next, Henry partnered with William C.C. Abbott. This effort was also short-lived, as Henry's real interest appeared to lie in the cultivation of trees. By 1835, Henry was already advertising trees for sale in two of Fredericksburg's newspapers, The Virginia Herald and The Political Arena.
(Map detail of Spotsylvania County, 1863.)
In May 1838, Henry bought from James Ross a 494-acre farm in Spotsylvania named "Hopewell." This place was located on the south side of what is now called Old Plank Road behind Zoan Baptist Church, In the years leading up to the Civil War, Henry added to Hopewell's size. The 1860 census showed his farm to then consist of 701 acres. The nurseries also included a few greenhouses, traces of which could still be seen in the 1930s.
(Image courtesy of John Ryland Orrock.)
Henry married his first wife, Clarissa Taliaferro Brooke, on June 3, 1834. Over the next nine years they would have six children together, only two of whom survived infancy--Charles Henry and William Brooke. Clarissa herself died on January 28, 1843, two weeks after the birth of her last child.
In November of the following year, Henry married Susan Frances Brownlow. They had two children together, Susan and Henry, Jr., both of whom lived to adulthood.
Over the years, Henry propagated untold numbers of trees, and he shipped his products to customers across Virginia and to many states in the eastern United States. By the 1850s, Henry was widely considered to be one of Virginia's leading arborists. His name frequently appeared in trade journals and catalogs, a few examples of which are shown here:
(From Eric Mink's article: Landscaping the Rappahannock: Spotsylvania's Hopewell Nurseries)
(From The Southern Cultivator, 1854.)
(From Eric Mink's article: Landscaping the Rappahannock: Spotsylvania's Hopewell Nurseries)
(From The Cultivator, Vol. 1, No. 6, 1844. Courtesy of R. Brooks Robey.)
(From The Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste, January 1861. Courtesy of R. Brooks Robey.)
Henry Robey's business was frequently featured in newspaper articles:
(The Fredericksburg News, 6 February 1852.)
(The Alexandria Gazette, 23 September 1850.)
(Fredericksburg News, 14 May 1858.)
(Richmond Enquirer, 31 August 1860.)
From the Rumsey Auctions website I learned that one of Henry's customers before the Civil War was William Massie (1795-1862) of Nelson County, Virginia. In 1815, Massie's father gave him a 1500-acre estate named "Pharsalia." This well-diversified farm included a number of money-making enterprises, including large and well tended orchards. Massie had plenty of help to see to all this work; the 1850 census shows that he owned 139 slaves.
(William Massie. From Find-a-Grave).
(Envelope from Hopewell Nurseries addressed to William Massie, Esqr., Massies Mills, Nelson County Va. Dated November 1861. Note the Confederate stamp. From Rumsey Auctions.)
Henry's two oldest sons served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. William rode with the 9th Virginia Cavalry, Charles enlisted in the 55th Virginia Infantry. William survived the war without being wounded, captured or hospitalized. Charles was not so fortunate. He spent much of the war seriously ill, both at home and at Confederate hospitals. He suffered from a variety of chronic complaints, including hepatitis, neuralgia and diarrhea. On April 3, 1865 he was captured by Union forces while still a patient in one of the hospitals in Richmond. He was first taken to Libby Prison, and from there was transported to Newport News on April 23. There he remained a captive until he took the oath of allegiance to the United States on July 1, 1865. He then returned to Spotsylvania and continued working at Hopewell.
Henry had his own troubles during the Civil War. During the Battle of Chancellorsville, Hopewell was used as a campsite by Cobb's Legion and the 4th Virginia Cavalry. A field hospital was set up there. Ordnance wagons and troop baggage trains were parked there. "For want of axes" needed to chop firewood, Confederate soldiers instead helped themselves to Henry's fencing in order to build fires. Hundreds of horses grazed freely on his land, eating up half the grass he would have otherwise cut for hay that year. Henry submitted a claim for damages to the Confederate army, which was approved just days before the end of the war.
Henry's second wife Susan died on April 12, 1865. It is said she died upon hearing the news of the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. Nine months later, Henry married his third wife, Ann Lucas.
During the 1870s, St. George's Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg underwent a tumultuous period during which two of its pastors resigned from the pulpit. Reverend Magruder Maury, who had been rector at St. George's since December 1864, resigned in 1871 in a dispute over his salary. His replacement, Reverend C. Murdaugh, also had his problems with the parish. He resigned in 1877 in order to form Trinity Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg. About a third of St. George's members followed him there. In 1871, Henry deeded an acre of his land in order build St. George's Chapel. I have not discovered whether there is any connection between St. George's problems in Fredericksburg and Henry's building the chapel, but the timing is interesting. The chapel once stood on what is now called Old Plank Road at the far east corner of Henry's property, probably near the intersection with Ziyad Drive. Services were regularly held there well into the twentieth century. The chapel ultimately fell into disuse and succumbed to decay.
At some time, probably in the early 1870s, Henry Robey--who was active in local politics--ran for justice of the piece, as shown on the election broadside above (which I found among my great-grandfather's papers). I was not able to learn if Henry won.
(From The Daily Star, 13 January 1895.)
Beginning in the early 1850s, construction began what would become the Potomac, Fredericksburg and Piedmont Railroad, a rail line that would connect Fredericksburg with the Town of Orange. Work stopped on the railroad during the Civil War, and resumed shortly thereafter. The railroad passed through Hopewell, and "Robey's" became one of the scheduled stops. The first train to rumble down the tracks left Fredericksburg on February 26, 1877.
(Fredericksburg News, 10 February 1876.)
Henry Robey did not live to see that day. He died at his home on February 7, 1876. The funeral was held at the chapel near his house, and he was buried in the Fredericksburg Cemetery. His wife Ann followed him to the grave just nine months later.
After the Civil War, Henry's youngest son, Henry, Jr., moved to Arkansas and lived there until his death in 1909. William Brooke Robey had seven children by two wives. His oldest daughter, Lula, taught in the public schools of Spotsylvania County. In 1898 she married Charles Andrew Orrock. Charles's father, James Orrock, was a Scottish immigrant who worked as a nurseryman for Henry Robey. One of Charles and Lula's daughters, Mollie, was one of my teachers at Chancellor Elementary School.
Charles Henry Robey worked at Hopewell until his father's death in 1876. In the 1880s, Charles attended the Fredericksburg Normal Institute, and began teaching in the Spotsylvania County schools in the 1890s. Charles was also a journalist and wrote many articles for the local newspapers. His unmistakable literary style was fluent, vivid and highly entertaining. In 1896, he wrote an article describing the violent confrontation between Phenie Tapp's new husband and her long-time lover. If you have not read my article on Phenie before, I think you will find this interesting: The World According to Phenie Tapp. Charles died in the Confederate Home in Richmond in 1903.
My thanks to John Ryland Orrock for providing background information for this article.
I will mention here again Eric Mink's article on Hopewell. This is well worth your time: Landscaping the Rappahannock: Spotsylvania's Hopewell Nurseries
For those of you who may be interested in the history of St. George's Episcopal Church here is the link to the article I consulted for this post: The Saints Split: Trinity Episcopal is created from St. George's , 1877
