6 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



The data about Solon from the time Vine Robinson 

 became his guardian in 1818 to 1830 is meager when con- 

 trasted with the full record of his later life. Entries 

 in an account book purchased in 1825 indicate that he 

 was in Lisbon and New London, Connecticut, in that 

 year, and already sufficiently interested in the history 

 of his family to record genealogical information about 

 them. 1 Tradition has it that he became a Yankee peddler 

 about this time and wandered West. 2 



We know he was in Cincinnati in 1827, for on Septem- 

 ber 29 of that year he advertised in the Daily Cincinnati 

 Gazette for a lost wallet "containing all the Cash" he had. 

 Eight months later, on May 17, 1828, to be exact, the 

 same paper announced his marriage to Mariah Evans, 

 of Philadelphia, daughter of Thomas and Keziah Evans. 3 

 Mariah, born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, on Novem- 

 ber 16, 1799, was well educated for that day, and had for 

 some time been a governess in the family of Joseph Jef- 

 ferson. 4 Four years older than her husband, a woman of 

 strong character and refinement, Mariah Evans was a 

 worthy helpmate to Solon in the early years of his career. 

 Just why and when the latter went to Cincinnati, how 

 he became acquainted with Mariah, and what he did for 

 a living in the Queen City are all questions of interest, 

 but records and family tradition throw little light on 

 these years. The Cincinnati Directory of 1829 lists him 

 as a clerk, a fact which is consistent with family legend 

 that he was a cashier in a theater. If this is true, it may 



1 Robinson Account or Memorandum Book, Norwich and New 

 London, Connecticut, March 21, 1825, p. 5, in Harry Robinson 

 Strait Collection. 



2 Verplank, Charlotte Wheeler (great-great-granddaughter of 

 Solon Robinson), "Solon Robinson — The Founder," in Lake County 

 Star, centennial edition, Crown Point, August 17, 1934; Knotts, 

 "Solon Robinson." 



' The Cincinnati Gazette gives her name as "Mrs. M. Evans," but 

 the Robinson Genealogy, 1:182-83, does not mention an earlier mar- 

 riage. 



4 Statement of Mrs. Cora Lincoln, Crown Point, April 8, 1929. 



