Robson family, part 2

Part of the ‘Smith family history’ series

Part of the ‘Kirkwood history’ series

I stopped by the DeKalb County courthouse again the other day to see if any of the missing deed books were returned to the shelves. It seems that books “L” through “P” are still missing, but the “G/Q” book was on the shelf. It’s possible it’s been there all along and I may have overlooked it. Regardless, this deed book helps clarify a few things, so before continuing, a quick correction from the previous post. I referred to a deed transferring 850 acres from John Lycan Kirkpatrick to his brother James Wallace Kirkpatrick. In actuality, this was (as the deed index indicated) a record of J. L. Kirkpatrick appointing J. W. Kirkpatrick as his power of attorney with respect to the 850 acres he was presumably bequeathed when his father died in 1853, effective 5/21/1868.

The availability of the “G/Q” deed book also gave me access to the Kirkpatrick-Robson deeds: first, I was able to find the record of the 11 acres sold from J. L. Kirkpatrick to Sion B. Robson on 10/22/1868. One thing that was a bit of a surprise to me was that the property description in the Robson deed mentions that it is bounded on the east by the lands of Mrs. T. C. Howard. I was unable to find any deed to the Howards prior to the one recorded between J. L. Kirkpatrick and Mrs. Jane C. Howard (with her older brother Robert Cornelius Robson listed as trustee) on 4/5/1870. At the end of the day, I suppose it’s not terribly important who arrived first, but the fact of the matter remains that both Sion and Kate Robson’s 11 acre homestead was on the north side of the GA railroad tracks, and their immediate neighbor to the east was Thomas Coke Howard and his wife Jane Clark Robson Howard.

Thankfully, the deed record includes a sketch of the 11 acre property. So between that sketch, the property description, and some guesswork I’m fairly confident I’ve been able to identify both the Robson homestead property as well as the 30 acre T. C. Howard property immediately to the east. I believe this also explains why DeKalb Avenue becomes West Howard Avenue near the Ridgecrest Road intersection, and I’m near certain that the name of Howard Circle in contemporary Lake Claire is a reference to T. C. Howard. Below I will include both the sketch from the Robson deed as well as some approximate measurement areas using Google maps, but keep in mind that this is really just a “best guess” for the locations.

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While the specifics of the property boundaries of the earliest landholders once John Lycan Kirkpatrick began selling parcels of the Kirkpatrick land are interesting, perhaps the more salient takeaway should be who the new landholders were. As I previously mentioned, Thomas Coke Howard was a well known individual, and many more famous/infamous people, particularly those involved in Georgia politics, moved to Kirkwood in the late 1860’s and early 1870’s. Besides T. C. Howard and another politician James W. Warren (more on him later), Georgia Governors John B. Gordon, Alfred H. Colquitt, and William J. Northen all resided in (north) Kirkwood around this time. Their political influence was significant as conspirators in the Bourbon Triumvirate and the Atlanta/Kirkwood ring.

Kirkwood was a political power in those days. The brilliant Col. T. C. Howard, Robert Alston (who said he discovered Henry Grady), Gordon, Colquitt, Northen. Colquitt was governor in 1877, Gordon was governor in 1886, and Northen was governor in 1890.

Kate Hester Robson Autobiography, 1910/1912 pg. 23

The reference to Thomas Coke Howard’s nephew Robert Alston is interesting, as I would think his extant antebellum country home “Meadow Nook” on Alston Drive near the East Lake Golf Club today would be a bit of a stretch, even at that time, to be referred to as Kirkwood. However, given that Kirkwood was not formally incorporated with defined boundaries until much later it’s not too surprising. The 1875 Beasley’s Atlanta Directory includes a listing for Alston with a reference to his residence being in Kirkwood.

John Brown Gordon’s “Sutherland” estate consisted of 86 acres immediately west of the Robson property outlined above (but extended much farther north). While it was never openly acknowledged in his lifetime, it is broadly accepted that Gordon was the head of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia following the Civil War. In 2020, 44 descendants of Gordon wrote to Governor Brian Kemp asking for the removal of a 1907 statue honoring Gordon residing on the Georgia State Capitol grounds, but their request was ignored.

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So, on to the next matter at hand: the origin of the “Kirkwood” name. For as long as I’ve lived in Kirkwood the neighborhood lore (substantiated by a quick Google search, or a visit to the Kirkwood page on Wikipedia) has been that the Kirkwood name is a portmanteau, combined from the Kirkpatrick and Dunwoody family names. I’m fairly sure I know the origin of this bit of legend, and it may, at least in part, be from a wonderful little book from October of 1993 titled “Living Histories, Community Pride: Edgewood, Kirkwood, East Atlanta, East Lake, East Lake Meadows” edited by former Kirkwood resident Rebecca Ranson. The book is a collection of interviews with the intent of preserving oral history of the neighborhoods mentioned in the title.

One of the interviewees in the book was Jack Bryan and his wife Maurguerite. Mr. Bryan’s family had moved to Kirkwood in October of 1914. In the transcribed interview, Bryan says the following:

I have seen a history of Kirkwood. There is a woman named Roberta Roberson (sic) who was born here. Her father was one of the original settlers. He was the postmaster when we moved here. Miss Roberta was one of the primary grade school teachers. Her mother was a Dunwoody and the Dunwoodys, according to her story, were really the founding family. She knew I was interested in history and she let me read her history. It was handwritten and she wrote a beautiful hand.

All this area almost was Dunwoody’s farm property and all on the North side clear to Emory University belonged to the Kirkpatrick family. The Kirkpatricks and the Dunwoodys got together and began selling lots and building the houses. The name Kirkwood came from Kirkpatrick and Dunwoody. That was Roberta’s version and it makes sense.

The Kirkpatricks had moved away from here by the time we moved but the Dunwoodys lived here up until the 1950’s. Their house was on the corner of Ridgedale just one block up from Boulevard (now Hosea L. Williams Drive NE) on the Southwest corner. It was a rambling one-story farm type structure.

Living Histories, Community Pride, pg. 18

Let’s see if we can unpack this story a bit. The Roberta Robson (not Roberson) in question here was Kate Hester Robson’s granddaughter. As we saw in the previous post I wrote about the Robson’s, Kate and Sion Robson had a daughter named Roberta Robson (who never married), but she had died by 1892. So that is not the Roberta that Mr. Bryan could have known. However, Kate’s son Paul Robson had a daughter ~also named Roberta Robson, who was born in 1892 and died in 1979. We can see them enumerated here in the 1920 census living on Kirkwood Road, and that Miss Roberta was in fact a teacher. Paul Robson was a widower, and his sister-in-law was living with them at that time. His late wife was Annie Laurie Parker Robson, not a Dunwoody/Dunwody.

Readers may have noticed my references to the Kate Hester Robson autobiography. I have a typed copy of her autobiography. The Atlanta History Center has the original in their collection, which was gifted to them in 1950. I suppose there could be some (very) slim chance that Mr. Bryan’s quote was referring to some other autobiography, however I find it incredibly unlikely. We know that Sion and Kate Robson were one of the very first families that acquired land from the Kirkpatricks and settled here, so I think we can safely assume this is a reference to her.

The mention of the Dunwoody family is understandable. The Dunwoody family (which is actually Dunwody, which is the name I’ll use going forward) did own some property in what is now Kirkwood, but I believe that the first Dunwody that lived here was Jefferson Davis Dunwody, and that was many years after the coining of the Kirkwood name. His uncle was Charles A. Dunwody, namesake of Dunwoody, Georgia. His second cousin was Teddy Roosevelt. His wife was Kate’s daughter Martha Cornelia Robson (Roxy). Roxy married Dunwody in 1885 and they acquired property from the Atlanta Suburban Land Company on 5/27/1891 comprising what was previously 44 and 52 Kirkwood Road. Mr. Bryan mentions the house at the SW corner of Ridgedale in the quote above. The house they lived in (along with Kate Hester Robson) was previously at 52 Kirkwood, was nicknamed “The Nest” by the family, and was unfortunately demolished in 2018.

The family also purchased 60 and 64 Kirkwood Road on 7/6/1900. Other Robson family members were living nearby as well. Anyways, back to this Kirkwood name… In Kate Hester Robson’s autobiography, she states the following.

In the early Seventies, Col Howard thought that as our community had a few local habitations we ought to have a name. He suggested Kirkwood in compliment to Dr. James Kirkpatrick who had owned all the land on which out homes were built. We all agreed and I expect I was the first person to put “Kirkwood” on a letter.

The truth is, Uncle Howard and I named Kirkwood.

Kate Hester Robson Autobiography, 1910/1912 pg. 21

The earliest mention I’ve ever found of the name Kirkwood was a newspaper ad from well known auctioneer G. W. Adair offering four 10-22 acre lots for sale.

So whether it was the late 1860’s or early 1870’s as Kate Robson recalled, I think her story is believable. Additionally, an article published in the Atlanta Journal in August of 1899 includes the following:

Whence Its Name Came

“About the time the academy was built,” Mrs. Robson continued, “Colonel Howard, of kind memory, suggested that we ought to have a name, as we had grown out of the broom-sedge and bushes into quite a little settlement, so we talked much about it and all agreed that it should be named for Dr. Kirkpatrick, who was very popular and prominent. I suggested the name of Kirkwood, instead of Kirkpatrick, and that gained at once and the town was so named.”

The last wrinkle to this little puzzle is the fact that in both her autobiography, and the Atlanta Journal article, Kate Robson refers to the namesake as “Dr.” Kirkpatrick. The typed copy of the manuscript I have specifically says “Dr. James Kirkpatrick.” Keep in mind from the Kirkpatrick family history, the original James H. Kirkpatrick was a farmer from Ireland who passed away in 1853. It seems unlikely to specifically refer to him as “Dr.”, even as a means of honor. After James H.’s death the bulk of the real estate holdings went to his son Reverend Dr. John Lycan Kirkpatrick. And of course, John Lycan’s brother was James Wallace Kirkpatrick who functioned as the attorney-in-fact for most if not all of the real estate sales to the Robsons, etc. So who was Kirkwood actually named for? It’s possible that in Kate’s autobiography she meant to say Dr. John Kirkpatrick, given his actual prominence as a well-known Presbyterian minister, president of Davidson College, and an esteemed professor at Washington and Lee University. It’s also possible that the handwritten manuscript actually says “Dr. John Kirkpatrick”, rather than “Dr. James Kirkpatrick”, but I’ll need to find time to check with the Atlanta History Center on that.

For now, however, we can safely dispel the legend that Kirkwood was named for the Kirkpatricks and the Dunwoodys. While there is obviously a strong connection between the families due to Cornelia Robson’s marriage to Jefferson Davis Dunwody in 1885, I believe they can be safely disqualified as a namesake.