[3] His mother's father, Peyton Conway, was the clerk of the court in Stafford County, Virginia, and her family also descended from Scots immigrant—Rev.
Admitted to the Virginia bar, Robinson would argue 100 cases before the Supreme Court, as well as publish many treatises.
His engineer brother Moncure Robinson helped construct that railroad and would become its president (1840-1847), when service extended to Aquia harbor, so passengers could then catch a ferry to Washington, D.C.
[9] Conway Robinson helped found the Virginia Historical Society in 1831, serving as its first treasurer (with John Marshall as its first president) and his father in law Benjamin W. Leigh as the first chairman of the executive committee.
In 1848 Robinson delivered "An Account of Discoveries in the West until 1519, and of Voyages to and along the Atlantic Coast of North America from 1520 to 1573".
[13] During the American Civil War, the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac became strategically crucial and suffered extensive damage from both armies.
Cary Robinson (1843-1864) fought with the 6th Virginia Infantry and died at the Battle of Burgess Mill in October 1864.
[14] In his final years, Robinson worked on and published the first volume of "History of the High Court of Chancery and other Institutions of England" in 1882.
His daughter Agnes Conway Robinson donated over 1,035 books from his library, and a portrait of her father, to the Virginia Historical Society, although its finances in 1892 prevented it from publishing his memoir of Arthur Lee.