The Robinsons named their home Rokeby after Sir Walter Scott’s best-selling novel, which was set at Rokeby Park in County Durham, England, the Palladian-style villa of Scott’s friend J.B.S. Morritt, designed and built by Sir Thomas Robinson between 1725 and 1730; despite the shared surname, the Vermont Robinsons are not known to be related to Sir Thomas Robinson. Quakerism began in the 1650s under George Fox amid social and religious unrest in England, and Quakers were persecuted in England and the American colonies for believing that people could relate to and communicate directly with God without a minister; today they are also known as Friends and belong to the Religious Society of Friends. Rokeby became a National Historic Landmark in 1997 because it is one of the nation’s best-documented Underground Railroad sites, with letters written and received by Rowland and Rachel Robinson helping illuminate the antislavery and abolitionist movement in the United States. Freedom seekers associated with Rokeby were not necessarily hidden there, as letters show that Vermont was a safe haven; some, including Jesse, stayed for months and worked openly on the Robinsons’ farm, while others stayed briefly before continuing on. Thomas Richardson Robinson was among the first Americans to import Merino sheep from Spain in 1810, paying $485 for a single full-blooded ram, and his flock eventually grew to about 1,500 sheep. In the 1940s the family promoted Rokeby as the home of author Rowland Evans Robinson and as an Underground Railroad stop, but the museum was not formally established until after Elizabeth Donoway Robinson died in 1961, having left the land, house, eight historic farm buildings, thousands of objects, and more than 15,000 letters for future generations.
