Robinson worked with the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) from 1903 to 1908, leaving to become an economic botanist with the Bureau of Science in Manila.
He was reported as missing on December 11, with the assistant resident of Amboina (now Ambon in Indonesia) writing about the nature of his disappearance.
The boy hurried to his village whereupon the locals feared that Robinson intended to do them harm, possibly believing him to be a head-hunter.
[4] In Robinson's obituary it was written that he was "struck down by the hands of ignorant and savage natives" while "in the peaceful pursuit of his profession and in his zealous endeavors to augment the sum of human knowledge".
[1] There was a local myth of a werewolf-like decapitator called a "potong kepala" and it is speculated Robinson was mistaken for one.