STAR VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
HISTORICAL BOOKS INVENTORY DETAILS
1.
Overview
Title: John Peart (J.P.) Robinson
Author: Helen Robinson Gough
Subject: Personal History
Publisher:
Publishing Date: June 16,1997
Number of Pages: 4
ID#: 613
Location: Website
2.
Evaluation
Evaluator's Name(s): Kent and Polly Erickson
Date of Evaluation: February 2015
Key Words: Tin Cup Road, McCoy Creek Road, Vail Coal Mine
Included Names: Elizabeth Ann Walton, Rose Luthi, Pearl Nelson, Gene Briggs
3. Svnopsis
J.P. was born in Utah in 1882. His mother died when was born. In Freedom,
Wyoming, he met Rose Luthi. They were married in 1903. They had seven
children. Rose died in childbirth with the seventh child in 1916. For a ti8me the
children were cared for by others. J.P. was involved in the hard winter in Nebraska
where so many cattle died. He married Pearl Nelson in 1922. He worked on road
construction, at the Vail Coal Mine, and in ranching. He loved horses and working
cattle. He died in 1948 after a hunting accident.
4. Other
^Submitted by Laraine Robinson
JOHN PEART (J.P.) ROBINSON
by Helen I. Robinson Gough
June 16, 1997
J.P. was bom in Richmond, Cache County, Utah on November 27,1882. His mother,
Merelda Angela Peart, died when he was bom, so a relative with a baby the same age took him
and nursed him with her baby. The woman's last name was Walton*. I don't know her first
name. At some point after he was weaned, he went back to live with his father, John Robinson,
Jr. who remarried in 1886. This was his second of three wives, Annie Christensen. By 1893,
John had married his third wife, Hilda Ulricka Erickson.
Growing up in Cache Valley, J.P. helped his father with the cattle, driving them into Star
Valley for summer feed. They drove them through Soda Springs and along Tin Cup Creek into
Freedom.
He spent little time in school, only finishing the fourth reader. He wasn't much of a
speller, but he could figure (do math) with the best of them.
After the cattle drive when he was 16, he stayed in Freedom with F.G.(Franklin Gregson)
and Bertha Robinson for that winter, never retuming to Cache Valley to live. Sometime later
(maybe two years), John and Hilda moved to Freedom and built a home on what would become
known as the Old Robinson Ranch.
At the age of 21, J.P. married Rose Luthi, who was 19. They met at a dance in Freedom
and were soon engaged. They were married June 10,1903 in the L.D.S. Temple in Logan,
traveling down from Wyoming in a wagon with Rose's parents.
They had seven children, two dying at birth. The children were John Melvin (b. October
12, 1904), Owen (died at birth), Orval Dewain (b. April 16,1907), Merie G. (b. September 3
1909), Merelda Rosina (b. October 23, 1911), Helen lone (b. August 29, 1914) and ababy that
died at birth (b. October 30, 1916). Rose also died October 30,1916 in labor with this child
who came breech.
J.P. had one of the first cars in Freedom, getting it in 1916.
They lived in several places before buying a ranch in Freedom. All of the children were
bom in the old log house on the property. After Rose died, J.P. hired girls to take care of the
children. It became too hard to get help out at the ranch, so J.P. moved into town. He bought a
house on Main Street.
Vemie Osmond took care of the children while J.P. and Golden Erickson took cattle to
North Platt, Nebraska.
Her own three sons also lived with them.
*Elizabeth Ann Walton
The cattle were shipped to North Platt.
J.P. heard the cattle could pasture out all winter
there without being fed. It turned out to be the "the hard winter." The cattle just crowded
along the fences and froze to death. He lost most of his own cattle and some he had taken for
other ranchers.
After this loss, J.P. didn't go back to ranching until after he married Pearl Nelson. He
bought and sold cattle for Louder, a cattle buyer from Idaho Falls, Idaho.
During this time, J.P. had a couple, the Arnold's, who came back from North Platt with
him, take care of the ranch and Swede (Merle), Merelda and Helen for one or two years.
Mrs. Arnold's health got bad, and she couldn't take care of the children any longer. Swede
went to live with Bill and Velda Robinson.
Merelda went with Glen and Elsie Robinson, and
Helen stayed with Carl and Minnie Robinson.
Pearl Nelson of Bedford came to Freedom to work for Will Heap in the Mercantile,
where she met J.P. They were married October 9,1922.
The family then all moved together into the house in town. The boys were there until
they got jobs or went away to school in Preston, Idaho. They boarded with Ada Nelson, J.P.'s
sister.
J.P. herded cattle in Tin Cup for two springs. They took the cattle in early to eat the
bunch grass which came up early. After the bunch grass was eaten down, the cattle would be
moved out and sheep would be brought in to graze on the later, more tender grass.
During this time, Pearl, Swede, Merelda and Helen would take supplies by wagon up to
the camps and stay for a day or two. These were ftin outings.
Around this same time, J.P. went to work as Assistant Foreman under Gene Briggs on the
upgrading and extension of the Tin Cup Road, now Highway 34. The road was rebuilt through
Tin Cup Canyon and extended into Wayan, Idaho. The construction lasted two years. The
second year, Gene Briggs did not return, and J.P. became foreman.
The second summer, J.P. and the crew also did repair work on the McCoy Creek Road, a
forest service road.
While J.P. worked on the construction. Pearl and Elsie Robinson cooked for the crews.
Everything had to be made from scratch, including 10 or more loaves of bread a day. The
kitchen was tents with wood stoves, and the dining room was another big tent.
Horses drew all of the equipment from scraper to plows and graders. There was no
motorized machinery used. The men used picks and shovels when the horses and large
equipment couldn't be used.
J.P. made their beds by constructing a large box, which was then filled with pine bows,
and a small cotton mattress was laid on top.
town.
By this time, J.P. and Pearl had Susa Dot. Frank G. and Sybil Pearl were bom later in
Sybil died at the age of two of Scarlet Fever.
Soon after Sybil's death. Pearl talked J.P. into going back on the ranch. John Robinson,
who had bought the ranch from J.P. years earlier, agreed to sell half of the ranch back to J.P. and
the other half to Leonard Robinson, J.P.'s brother.
In the division, J.P. got the part of the ranch without a home. He had to build a bam, a
garage, and a two-room house. The house was to be temporary, with a new bigger house built
in a year. However, the Depression hit, so the house got put off for an extra year.
The Depression also caught J.P. with a new herd of milk cows that he had paid $75.00 a
head for. Within that year he couldn't get $45.00 a head for them. One bright spot was the
newly constructed Swiss Cheese Factory. The factory gave farmers a market for their milk even
though the prices were low.
Kim was bom December 12,1933. Pearl and J.P. had one more child after Kim who
was stillbom.
Until his death in 1948, J.P. and Pearl lived on the ranch. Swede lived and worked on
the ranch for a couple of years before going to work for Jim Robinson. Merelda had been
working on her own for several years. Helen stayed on the ranch until she went to work in
Idaho Falls in 1943. Dewain and Melvin never lived on the ranch at this point, both having
married and started their own families and careers.
J.P. loved horses and working cattle. He didn't like milk cows, but realized it was the
best way to make a living, so he put up with them. Yellow Dutch was his favorite saddle horse.
Yellow Dutch died out on the range. Some men from the Cattleman Association found him and
buried him out there. They reported back to J.P. that they had buried him because, "He was
such a good horse."
The Vail Coal Mine in Gray's River was having trouble meeting their payroll and
keeping men. The company asked J.P. to come and manage the operation for a summer and fall.
The mine closed in the winter because of the cold. J.P. agreed and went to talk to the workers
who were threatening to walk off the job. He promised them that if they would stay, he would
see that they got paid. When the pay period was up, there was no money, so J.P. borrowed the
money from the bank on his own signature and made the payroll. Later the company did repay
J.P.
That winter there was an explosion in the mine killing all five of the men still working.
J.P. had a good personality. He was well liked by old and young alike. He also had a
good voice and would sing while in the bam milking cows. Some of his favorite songs were:
"In the Baggage Coach Ahead," "When Your Hair is Tumed to Silver," and other cowboy songs.
J.P. wore Levis, cowboy boots. Stetson hats and Pendleton shirts..
Hunting and fishing were always his favorite pastimes. Helen says, "Dad always took us
kids hunting in the fall. I remember a lot of good times on those trips."
When J.P. was 65, he got his first free hunting license in Wyoming. He was hunting elk
on horseback when the horse fell with him. He came home thinking he wasn't hurt that bad, but
the next day Pearl took him to the hospital in Afton. He died four days later of uranic
poisoning. That was October 25,1948. He is buried in the Freedom Cemetery.