Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 7, Number 2, May 1997 Page: 98
[68] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal
A few weeks later, Tobin got more good news. On May 6, a suit, probably for
divorce, brought against him by his wife, Martha, was dismissed. But there were more legal
troubles brewing for the suddenly prosperous Tobin. Shortly after making his deal with
Robson, Tobin was heard to say that he did not expect Robson to live to collect even one
of the annual payments, but he was wrong. Robson, to Tobin's regret, continued his
existence. When the first payment came due, on January 1, 1862, Tobin missed it. Robson
patiently waited through another year, but when Tobin again failed to pay on January 1,
1863, Robson went to court. He filed suit on March 1, 1863.40
Tobin's lawyer, James Madison Daniels, answered that Robson had persuaded
Tobin to sign the contract under fraudelent terms, to wit, that Robson did not own all the
land he claimed to, and that Tobin had since made a standing offer to Robson to cancel the
contract. Tobin described how Robson had repeatedly invited him into his home and
professed a deep affection and esteem for him; deeper, in fact, than he held for any of his
relatives, and how those visits had induced him to place an unwarranted trust in the contract
Robson proposed. The case dragged on for months, then years. Robson kept his health, and
the number of past due payments piled up. After the so-called Stay Law, which suspended
the state's debt laws, was passed in December 1863, Tobin called on its provisions in an
effort to get the case dismissed. But, on May 28, 1864, the legislature passed a law
specifically excluding his debt to Robson from the class of contracts covered by the Stay
Law. Then, in April 1866, Tobin himself died. His administrators wrangled with Robson
for two more years. Finally, on May 21, 1868, the case was settled out of court. Robson
got all his lands back, plus $500. Tobin's estate paid all court costs.41
Besides that of William Ryan, two other killings of more than passing interest
occurred in the county during the war. On February 16, 1862, Jesse Tanner, a fairly
prosperous farmer in his mid-thirties, was shot and killed. Though a man named Robert
Tarkington was accused of the crime, no one would ever be convicted of it. The same was
true of the second killing. In June 1863, Thaddeus Warsaw Hunter, enraged that a dog be-
longing to a Czech tenant farmer named Frantisek Sugarek had killed some of his sheep,
went to Sugarek's home with a gun, intending to kill the dog. To protect the dog, Sugarek
Tobin; Civil Cause File No. 1777: Robert Robson v. Robert H. Tobin; Colorado County Deed Records, Book
L, pp. 74-77; Colorado County Bond and Mortgage Records, Book E, p. 348.
40 Colorado County District Court Records, Civil Cause File No. 1763: Robert Robson v. Robert H.
Tobin; Civil Cause File No. 1777: Robert Robson v. Robert H. Tobin; Civil Cause File No. 1687: Martha C.
Tobin vs. Robert H. Tobin. The court's decree allowed Martha Tobin to remove all the case's papers from the
court's records, and she apparently did. It cannot be confirmed that the suit was for divorce because the papers
are missing.
41 Colorado County District Court Records, Civil Cause File No. 1763: Robert Robson v. Robert H.
Tobin, Civil Cause File No. 1777: Robert Robson v. Robert H. Tobin; Gammel, ed., The Laws of Texas 1822-
1897, vol. 5, pp. 449, 479, 795. In addition to being his lawyer, Daniels was Tobin's brother-in-law.98
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 7, Number 2, May 1997, periodical, May 1997; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151400/m1/26/?q=nesbitt%20memorial%20library%20journal: accessed May 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.