Beverley Robinson, 87, a retired French teacher in Boulder, Colorado, is a direct descendant of Beverley Robinson (1720-1792), a Loyalist who, with his wife, Susanna Philipse, owned a vast expanse of Hudson Valley land that included the Highlands before it was seized following the Revolutionary War.
Beverley Robinson
Was your father also named Beverley?
My father was Frederick Philipse Robinson. At my baptism in New York City, he supposedly said: “There’s always been a Beverley Robinson in New York so there’s going to be another one.” I have three sons but I did not name any of them Beverley because, well, you know, the name now isn’t easy for a man. I couldn’t do that in good conscience; I was tired of a lifetime of things like going into a bank and having them ask: “Are you cashing this check for your wife?” But you can go to Scotland and the name is perfectly normal. I usually go by “Bev.”
Beverley Robinson sided with the British during the Revolution. What do you think of him?
I’m quite proud to have his name. New York was a strong British outpost. It wasn’t like Boston, nor like Philadelphia. And the king was kind to him. He was clearly helping the Brits. He wasn’t just pulling back and being a country squire. If he had chosen the other side, our family would have owned all the land from the top of Manhattan to West Point. It would have been quite a hunk of real estate.
You recently emailed the rector at St. Philip’s Church in Garrison. What did you ask her?
Well, I have a paper published by the Putnam County Historical Society in 1914. It’s a speech that was given about Beverley Robinson and how he was a churchman and how he was a statesman and all very flattering. So I Googled St. Philip’s and emailed the rector, Amanda [Eiman], and she sent me two photos of a plaque over the baptismal font dedicated to Beverley Robinson, because he founded the church.
What was his connection to Benedict Arnold?
His home, Beverley House, was confiscated by rebel Americans and used by Gen. [Benedict] Arnold as his headquarters. [The home, on what is today Route 9D in Garrison, burned down in 1892.]
Has anyone ever said, “Are you related to the Beverley Robinson?”
The first time I heard anything like that was when I was in college. The head of the history department introduced me to a friend of his who taught at Harvard. And the friend said, “Oh, yes, the Hudson River!” But he was a historian. More recently, a neighbor across the street here in Boulder said: “Do you know there’s a Beverley Robinson in [the Ron Chernow biography] Hamilton? Is that any connection to you?” And I said, “Yes.” And she wanted me to come over and have tea with her ladies’ group and talk about it.
Beverley Robinson is was too modest about the achievements of his Loyalist ancestor of the same name in connection with Benedict Arnold and the British cause.
“In the treason of Arnold,” one author notes, “[Robinson’s] name and acts occur continually” as a co-conspirator and facilitator of communication between Arnold and Major John André for the betrayal of West Point.
In addition, according to Sir Henry Clinton, the commander of British forces during the war, Robinson “was appointed to the command of a [Loyalist] regiment composed chiefly of his own tenants, at the head of which he distinguished himself upon several occasions, and particularly at the storming of [the American nationalist defenses at] Fort Montgomery on Oct. 6, 1777.”
Beverley Robinson said of his ancestor: “He was clearly helping the Brits. He wasn’t just pulling back and being a country squire.”
As Bryan Dunlap notes, this claim seems extraordinarily modest, given the colossal damage to Washington’s forces that may fairly be traced to this ancestor. Robinson lived in Garrison. When war broke out, he went to New York City to organize a Loyalist regiment to fight with the British.
On Oct. 6, 1777, he joined his forces with those of Gen. Henry Clinton, and, because of his intimate knowledge of the trails and terrain, was able to lead these forces in one of the most audacious undertakings of the war. It involved a landing of 4,000 infantry at Stony Point, a march over Dunderberg and a pincers movement around Bear Mountain, to attack and overwhelm the Continental forces at Forts Montgomery and Clinton from the rear. And then to sink the great chain spanning the Hudson from Fort Montgomery to Bear Mountain, a chain supported by rafts and ordered by Gen. George Washington to stop the British Armada gathering in New York Harbor with upstream intentions.
The overland attack could not possibly have been successfully carried out without Robinson’s applied knowledge and cooperation. For this reason, one could fairly claim he was the procuring cause of this massive setback to the struggle for liberty.
This interview was very interesting. We have the Robinson land sale records here at the Dutchess County Clerk’s Office. [via Facebook]
Kendall is the Dutchess County clerk.