Details Of The Robinson Grant

Recently, local residents and elected officials celebrated restoration work on the Robeson-Williams Grist Mill.
Part of the money used to pay for Phase I of the project, in which the building was lowered onto its newly-restore foundation came from a “substantial gift from a direct descendant of John Robinson who owned the original mill constructed between 1701 and 1709.”
These monies, Landmark Society members said, will be used to restore the Mill’s Husk Frame, Water Wheel, Sluiceway, and open the space as a public educational center.
According to the Hempstead Town Records, John Robinson was granted permission on April 2, 1698, to set up a grist mill on a stream at the head of the harbor (“ye streme att ye hed of the harboure”), providing that he have the mill in operation within two years. (Benjamin Hicks ed., North & South Hempstead Town Records, Jamaica, 1897, Vol 11, Pgs. 131-132). Robeson (whose name was sometimes spelled Robison, and later spelled Robinson) was first mentioned in the Town Records in February 1691-92, (Vol 11, Pgs. 110-111).
The mill, Landmark Society members added, should have opened early in 1700, but it apparently did not, as at a Town Meeting on April 1,1701, a committee declared that the 1698 agreement was made void by Robeson’s default. By 1706, however, mention was made of a road leading from Robison’s Mill Dam (Town Records, Vol. Ill, Pg. 77) and in 1709 John Robeson and his son, Joseph Robison (sic) sold to Charles Mott “one sartain grist Mill with ye dam and stream—a small frame of a house and one iron croo (crow? ed.) with some other Instruments, belonging to ye said .. . Mill.” (Town Records, Vol III, Pg. 56).
In other news, Bill Stone, Deirdre Boerem Freund, and family members, all of whom are direct descendants of Timothy Townsend (d1790) and Timothy T. Boerem (d1891), recently visited the Townsend Cemetery in Roslyn to pay their respects. After extensive genealogical research, Deirdre Boerem Freund was able to record her family history directly to Timothy Townsend and his great-grandson Timothy T. Boerem.
The burying ground in the Townsend Cemetery was restored as a result of a grant from the Robert D.L. Gardiner Foundation.
—Submitted by the Roslyn Landmark Society