Moncure Robinson

Moncure Robinson (February 2, 1802 – November 10, 1891) was an American civil engineer, railroad planner and builder and a railroad and steamboat owner, who is considered one of America's leading Antebellum period civil engineers. He was educated at the College of William and Mary and at the Sorbonne; his most noted project was the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad. Unlike many early 19th century American engineers, Robinson did not receive his engineering education at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He acquired his engineering education through self-directed study and observing engineering projects throughout the United States and Europe. Within nine years of the introduction of the first steam locomotive in the United States, Robinson surveyed, supervised the construction, or was the consulting engineer for 721 miles of track (or one-third the entire railroad track built to that time). At the time of his death in 1891, over 163,000 miles of track spanned the country. Along with well-known engineers Benjamin Henry Latrobe, II, John Edgar Thomson, and John B. Jervis, Moncure Robinson was in much demand during the late 1820s-40s and after, the transition period from America's Canal Era to the beginning of the Railway Age. By 1850, the basic technical aspects of the American railroad had been solved by this generation of engineers. Early life Moncure Robinson was born in Richmond, Virginia to Agnes Conway Moncure (1780 – November 15, 1862), whose husband, John Robinson III (February 13, 1773 – April 26, 1850), was clerk and later judge of the circuit court. Both parents were from the First Families of Virginia. His brother Conway Robinson would serve a term in the Virginia House of Delegates, but become more noted as a legal scholar and historian, as well as for establishing parks and public buildings during his time on Richmond's City Council.