"An Illustrated History of the Big Bend Country; Embracing Lincoln, Douglas, 
Adams  and Franklin Counties; State of Washington". Spokane, Western Historical
Publishing  Company, Publishers, 1904. pp. 841-842.

FRED E. ROBBINS, vice president of the White River Lumber Companyís Ritzville
branch, was born at Vassalboro, Maine, August 25, 1866. His father is Oliver P.
Robbins, a native of Maine, in which state the family has been since 1710,
coming there from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. During the Civil War, Oliver P.
Robbins was a member of Company I, Twenty-first Maine Volunteers for nine
months. He is now living on the old homestead in Maine which has been in the
family for several generations. Our subjectís mother was Martha (Pierce)
Robbins, also a native of Maine, and a member of the old Pierce family prominent
in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, as well as the Civil War, and in
the commercial circles of Boston, and throughout New England generally. She now
lives with her husband in Maine.
     Fred E. Robbins lived on the farm in Maine until he attained his majority,
was educated in the district school and Oak Grove Seminary at Vassalboro, and
came to Oregon at the age of twenty-one. He was at Gardener, on the Umpqua
river, where he worked fifteen months in a saw mill. He spent three years in
placer mining on Forty Mile creek, in Alaska, with fair success after which he
returned to Washington and worked for a time in a saw mill at Hoquiam. He took a
trip to the Worldís Fair at Chicago and a visit to his old home, which vacation
consumed eight months, after which he returned to Washington, and in 1894
engaged in the general merchandise business at Cumberland, King county, which he
followed there for three years, then two years at Black Diamond, Washington. In
1899 he came to Ritzville to assume charge of his present business. He owns some
mining interests in British Columbia and Idaho, and a handsome home in
Ritzville.
     Mr. Robbins has two brothers and four sisters living: Frank; Payson; Mabel,
wife of E. A. Morrill; Alice, wife of Leslie Young; Lena, wife of Clarence
Pierce; and Ethel.
     At Seattle, March 12, 1891, occurred the marriage of Fred E. Robbins to
Emma Mansell, a native of Iowa, and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Mansell,
both born in England. Mr. Mansell is now living a retired life at Castle Rock,
Washington, his wife having died sometime since. Mrs. Robbins has four brothers,
John, Charles, William, and Enoch.
     The issues of this marriage are, Norman, Martha, Mabel and Fred, Jr.     
     In fraternity circles, Mr. Robbins is identified with Ritzville lodge
number 101, A. F. and A. M., Sprague chapter, R. A. M., Sprague, Washington, and
the Concantanated Order of Hoo Hoos, Spokane. In the first named order he is the
senior warden.
     Politically, he is a Republican, although not an active party man, and
enjoys the honor of being the present mayor of his city.

Submitted by: Georgia Harter Williams, georgiahw@earthlink.net