California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm



CAPT. RICHARD ROBINSON, who spent his last years in Ventura County, was a veteran mariner. 
He went to sea when a boy from his native home in the State of Maine, navigated a ship for 
years over nearly all the seas of the globe, but finally gave up his life on the deep. He invested 
extensively in lands and was one of the men who had much to do with the development of this 
county and his interests have subsequently been successfully maintained by his sons.
Captain Robinson was born in Warren, Maine, August 13, 1817. He attended the local schools 
until he was seventeen and then went to sea. The winters he spent at home, and during that 
time he made wise use of his opportunities to study navigation. He became a very proficient 
sailor and at the age of twenty-four was promoted master of a vessel. For nearly forty years his 
occupation identified him with marine affairs.
In 1873 he came to Ventura County, buying 442 acres in the Upper Ojai Valley. Of this large 
property he planted 50 acres in apricots and prunes, while the rest he utilized for general 
farming purposes. In 1873 he, associated with Mr. Fawcett and Mr. Dean, bought a tract of 
6,000 acres on the Santa Ana Grant. That land they used for a stock ranch.
Captain Robinson died in February, 1896, when upwards of eighty years of age. In politics he 
was a republican from the time that party was organized. In August, 1840, at Thomaston, 
Maine, he married Miss Mary Wentworth. Their two sons still reside in California.