Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 286 - 289  

JOHN C. ROBB, a leading and influential farmer and stock-raiser, who makes his home on section 35, Kechi Township, was born July 3, 1837, in Seneca County, Ohio. He is the sixth in a family of nine children born to his parents, Andrew and Ellen (Rishel) Robb. 

     The father of our subject was a farmer in the Buckeye State, but removed to Wisconsin in 1848, and settled in Green County. He remained a resident of that locality, engaged in tilling the soil, until the day of his death, which occurred in 1864. His excellent wife survived him until 1885, when she too was called home, having reached the advanced age of eighty-three years. Our subject received his education in the district schools, and was early trained in the vocation of a farmer in Wisconsin, making his residence beneath the home roof until attaining manhood. He commenced the battle of life in the Badger State, working at farm labor wherever he could find it to do until he was twenty-four years of age.

     On the breaking out of the great Rebellion, and on the call for troops from the loyal States of the North by the General Government, Mr. Robb enlisted, Sept. 7, 1861, in the 5th Wisconsin Battery, light artillery, and was mustered into the service of the United States at Racine, in that State. He participated, with the gallant company to which he was attached, in the battles of Perryville and Stone River, in the skirmishes which took place around New Madrid, and in the fierce and sanguinary conflict at Shiloh, where so many of the youth of our beloved land were called to a martyr's grave. After having been actively engaged throughout most of the battles in the Southwest, he participated, with the battery, in the Atlanta campaign, and was with Sherman when that matchless Captain, cutting loose from his base of supplies, marched through Georgia and the Carolinas to the sea. In 1863 he veteranized in the same company, receiving his first discharge at Madison, Wis., in January, 1863, and was in active service until the close of the war. At the battle of Stone River he was in imminent danger of capture, but was saved by the mule upon which he was riding running away. From exposure and hardship in the field he contracted rheumatism and many other of the diseases incident to a soldier's life, and sustained such injury to his eyes as rendered him nearly blind for a period of eleven years. At the close of the hostilities he was mustered out of the service, and received an honorable discharge at Madison, Wis., June 14, 1865. 

     Returning to his home, our subject commenced farming in Green County, Wis., where he was married, on Christmas Day, 1865, to Miss Sarah K. Hastings, a native of Mercer County, Pa., born Dec. 16, 1845. She is the sixth child of Hugh and Salome (Barnhart) Hastings, natives of the Keystone State, who had a family of ten children. The young couple remained in the Badger State until the fall of 1877, when they came to Kansas and settled in Sedgwick County, on the place where they now live. Mr. Robb purchased 160 acres of land, eighty acres in Kechi and eighty in Wichita Township. He at once commenced improving this property, but soon sold forty acres of it, and has now 120 acres of fine arable land in a high state of cultivation and excellently improved. It is sufficiently stocked with good, high-grade Norman horses, Durham cattle, and half-blood Jerseys and Holsteins. 

     Our subject is a strong Republican, and quite active in politics, but is a strong Prohibitionist in principle. He is an influential member of Wichita Post, G. A. R. To him and his wife has been born a family of six children, as follows: Omi, deceased; Luella married I. D. Long, and resides in Kechi Township; Janette, Clair A., Letha and Gracie. Omi died at the age of seven years, and the rest are at home and attending school.

[ Home ]