Sergeant George Robb, Company K.
George Robb, youngest child
of Joel and Jane Patton Robb, was born at McConnellsville, Ohio, on Feb.
15, 1843. He moved with his to Gay's Mill, Wis., in 1855. At the beginning
of the Civil War, in 1861, he enlisted at age 18 in the Union Army, serving
as Sergeant of Company K. 12th Wisconsin Infantry. He served until invalidated
after the Siege of Vicksburg. While in a hospital at Madison, Wis., his
mother came to nurse him and while there she contracted pneumonia, which
resulted in her death in 1864. After the war he was in the dry goods business
at Seneca, Wis., for a few years. Later he went to Minneapolis, Minn.,
as vice president of the Minnesota Soap Company. He was an efficient director
and developer of the soap manufacturing business and was active in organizing
the Minneapolis Retail Grocers Association. He served as Alderman of the
Fifth Ward for eight years and was the author of an ordinance requiring
the display of the U. S. flag at all public meetings where as many as ten
people were assembled. At the time of the financial panic in 1893, he was
president of the Peoples Bank of Minneapolis and succeeded in saving the
bank. He married Harriet Anna Gay (See Gay Line) at Mt. Sterling, Wis.,
on June 22, 1868. She was born at Garnavilla, Clayton County, Iowa on Feb.
7, 1847 and died at Minneapolis, Minn., on Aug. 25, 1937. References: American
Biography, published by American Historical Society, Vol. 23, page 245.
McDonnell and Allied Families, Page 73
Author: Lina Vandegrift Denison Cherry
Call Number: R929.2 M136
