The Robbins Family

A Tribute to Our First President

George Washington Robbins is my great grandfather. I have always been fascinated by his name. Today, every school child knows that George Washington was the father of our country, but from revolutionary times, our first president was treated as a legend. In the early history of our country, there was great debate over how to address the President. Some proposed His Excellency, George Washington, feeling that to do otherwise would be a signal to the community of nations that our president was something less in stature than the kings and queens of Europe. The crux of the revolution, however, was against monarchy, so in the end the simple Mr. President was adopted. This did not stop the adulation offered to our first president. In his biography "His Excellency George Washington" Joseph J. Ellis describes the fervor of the people toward the president.

"Washington's weeklong trip from Mount Vernon to New York, which became one prolonged coronation ceremony. It began with crowds of more than ten thousand celebrants cheering him amid cannon salutes and poetic tributes at Baltimore and Wilmington. Outside Philadelphia he was obliged to mount a white horse so that the twenty thousand spectators could see him as he crossed the Schuylkill. charles Wilson Peale had designed an arch of triumph over the bridge, and his daughter Angelical lowered a laurel crown upon Washington's head as he passed under the arch. At Trenton a chorus of white-robed girls tossed flowers from their baskets in his path while singing a tribute to 'The Defender of the Mothers, The Protectors of the Daughters.' " {ROB.2}

Clearly, in the mid nineteenth century when my great grandfather was born, his parents decided to connect the Washington legend to their son George.