Moses Robbins

Moses Robbins was born in 1843 in Ohio, the son of Ira (d. 1849) and Elizabeth (Mann, d. 1896).

Ira and Elizabeth were married in New Portage, Ohio in 1834 and they resided in Ohio for some years. The family apparently moved back to Orleans County sometime in the late 1840s and in 1849 Ira died in Knowlesville, Orleans County, New York. By 1850 Moses was attending school with two of his siblings and living with his mother in Ridgeway, Orleans County. Moses and his family eventually left Orleans County, New York and came to western Michigan where by 1860 he was living with and/or working for Joseph Robbins (b. 1790) in Boston, Ionia County. Two doors down lived Martin (b. 1837) and Elizabeth Robbins and next door to them lived one Russell Robbins (b. 1819) and his wife Adaline and their family.

Moses was 18 years old and probably still living in Ionia County when he enlisted with the consent of the Justice of the Peace in Company D on May 13, 1861. (Company D was composed in large part of men who came from western Ionia County and Eaton County.)

Moses was absent sick in the hospital from December of 1862 until he died of pleuro-pneumonia at 2:30 p.m. on March 18, 1863, in ward 8 of Chestnut Hills hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Another source reported his as having died on March 24, 1863 from chronic diarrhea. In any case, he was originally buried in “The Soldier’s Rest,” Odd Fellows cemetery, grave no. 15, but later reinterred in Philadelphia National Cemetery: section 5, grave 151.

The only relative noted on his death record was a sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Hitchcock who was then residing in Waterford, Orleans County, New York. In fact his mother Elizabeth was living in Waterford in 1865 when she applied for and received a pension (no. 72608), drawing $12.00 per month by 1896. (In 1870 there was one Elizabeth Robbins residing in Lowell, Kent County.)