Rowland Thomas & Rachel Gilpin Robinson
As a young man, Rowland T. Robinson was sent to the Quaker boarding school at Nine Partners, New York, where he met his future wife, Rachel Gilpin. They married in 1820 and returned to Rokeby to live. Although he helped his father operate the family the family mills and sheep farm, Rowland's true calling was as a Garrisonian abolitionist and radical reformer. he was active in anti-slavery societies from the local to the national level and harbored many fugitive slaves at Rokeby. Besides abolition, he was a temperance activist, campaigned against capital punishment, and investigated the best methods of pauper relief.