October 22-December 31
Freedom House Museum
1315 Duke Street

This exhibit highlights the life of Monday Robinson born in 1778, a man whose story encompassed enslavement, freedom, and later, the enslavement of members of his own family as a means of protection.

Robinson’s story stretches through many counties in Virginia and is a complicated history. He enslaved his family. While it is believed that it may have been for protection, there is evidence he hired out his children to landowners in his area and used his wife and three of his children as collateral for a loan. 

Monday Robinson had written a will prior to his death, but the accuracy about his entire family’s freedom was in question. His brother was the administrator of his will and ultimately was able to free nine of Monday’s children and grandchildren. With freedom, his family had to leave Frederick County and they migrated to various places including Alexandria. Some descendants are connected to Alexandria’s Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial which led genealogist Char McCargo Bah to uncover new branches of the family tree. 

Working with Fran Norton Burton who is a great grand-daughter to Hester Robinson Carter and the granddaughter of Douglas Robinson Carter, Bah discovered more about the Alexandria connections to Monday Robinson. In Bah’s words, “the Robinson family can date its ancestry back over 250 years in Virginia and have the honor of being a 250th Anniversary family.”

After 16 years of research, Robinson’s complex life was uncovered by using primary-source documents from Virginia counties, including Lancaster, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Middlesex, Prince William, Fauquier, Essex, Loudoun, Frederick, Shenandoah, and Alexandria, as well as from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The exhibit will guide visitors through census records, tax documents, court orders, deeds, apprenticeship papers, emancipation records, wills, and other sources that reveal Robinson’s connections to enslaved and free women in Alexandria, Virginia, and to his later life in Middletown. Robinson was active in the community and conducted business with Belle Grove Plantation.

This exhibit was made possible by the work of Kristen Laise, Executive Director of Belle Grove Plantation; Frances Norton Burton, a descendant; Char McCargo Bah, Brenda Burton Nelson, a genealogist, author, and historical researcher focused on Robinson’s life in the Shenandoah Valley; and Jess Pritchard-Ritter, digital public historian and exhibit designer, For the Love of History LLC. Funding was provided through a grant from Crescent Cities Charities as well as private donations.