Manuscript Location

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library

Place of Origin

United States ➔ North Carolina

Date of Composition

likely mid-19th century

Description

The library's collection of the Franklin C. Robbins papers includes two manuscript cookbooks. Both books are of unknown authorship and are undated, but they are believed to have been compiled by members of the Robbins family during the mid-nineteenth century. Both books contain approximately 90 pages of recipes, primarily for pickling and sweets.

Franklin C. Robbins was born in 1833 in Randolph County, North Carolina. His father, Ahi Robbins, helped found a local school known as the Union Institute, which later became Trinity College and then Duke University. Franklin Robbins joined the Confederate Army in April 1861. He was wounded several times and taken prisoner before being released from duty at Appomattox in April 1865; his brother was killed in the Civil War battle at Sharpsburg, Maryland. After the war, Robbins moved to Lexington, North Carolina, where he was a prominent lawyer for over fifty years before his death in 1926.