This John Robinson was probably born on one of this father's plantations in Middlesex County, Virginia in 1683 to the former Agatha Obert (1649-1686) and her merchant and planter husband Christopher Robinson (1645-1693). He had an elder brother, Christopher Robinson (1681-1726), who also followed their father's paths as a planter and politician. During their childhood, their father grew in political power in Virginia (eventually becoming the colony's secretary) as well built a manor house which this man would inherit, and which survives today, Hewick Plantation, near modern Urbanna. Although their mother died when both were young boys, their father remarried, to the widow Katherine Hone Beverley (1643-1692), the daughter of burgess Theophilus Hone and widow of Major Robert Beverley, a wealthy planter and clerk of the House of Burgesses. The will provided that neighboring planter, merchant and burgess William Churchill would become the estate's executor. By 1694 there were only 528 li in accounts receivable and personal property remaining, but Churchill assumed their father's merchant connection with Jeffreys of London and managed the boys' lands til they came of age in 1701 and 1703.Darrett B. Rutman and Anita H. Rutman, A Place in Time: Middlesex County, Virginia 1650-1750 (W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. 1984) p. 217
