1793 Letter from Rev. Isaac Robbins to His Parents Concerning Smallpox, Attacks by Indigenous Peoples, and Sin

Charlestown, Ohio County, Virginia (now Brooke County, West Virginia), 1793. Single two-page letter measuring 7 ½ x 12 ½ inches. Folded with small tears at folds, some holes intersecting with text; overall excellent.. A letter from Isaac Prince Robbins (1770–1846) in what is now West Virginia to his parents Rev. Chandler Robbins (1738–1799) and Jane Prince (1740–1800) in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Isaac Robbins was likely teaching in the area, as he mentions the “price of my school” and that the oncoming spring had “call’d the larger scholars away” to farm. He also notes that smallpox had been running through the area, and inquires about the family’s health as they had contracted the disease the previous October.

Robbins also informs his family that there is “No prospect of peace while the Indians commit depredations as frequent as they do. Kill’d and took seven families at a station 30 miles this side Lymestone (Kentucky Landing)”. It is not clear whether he is referring to “Hartshorne’s defeat”, part of the Northwest Indian War where the Northwestern Confederacy attacked Euro-American settlers near Limestone (now Maysville)—this attack occurred in 1790, though it is possible that Robbins had not contacted his family since prior to this event.

He closes by ruminating on his own sin, telling his parents, “I have erred and gone astray point out to me the way that I shall ask forgiveness whereby I can be saved.” This letter probably predates Isaac Robbins’ following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a minister.

Of interest to historians of the settlement of West Virginia and related conflicts with Indigenous tribes. (Inventory #: List2998)