On July 21, 1861, as the First Battle of Manassas raged around the Robinson House, James Robinson sent his family to safety at a nearby home. Unable to join them, Robinson hid under a bridge, emerging after the battle to find 13 Confederate soldiers lying dead in his front yard.

Barely one year later, in late August 1862, the Robinson House served as a shelter for Union dead and wounded during the Second Battle of Manassas. Despite the ravaged landscape, James Robinson and his family found the spirit to overcome the war’s destruction and to fashion for themselves an identity that was uniquely African and American. 

For nearly a century, the Robinson House, located in what is now the Manassas National Battlefield Park in Manassas, Virginia, was home to the descendants of James Robinson.

Born a free African American in 1799, Robinson served a short indenture as a young man before working in a Virginia tavern where he earned the $484.94 needed to purchase 170 acres of land near Bull Run. In 1842, he built a small log cabin, which was enlarged and renovated several times over the years.

Through hard work and perseverance, the Robinson family turned the surrounding land into a prosperous farm, making James Robinson one of the wealthiest African Americans in the Manassas area in the mid-19th century.