My Genealogy Hound

George Washington Robertson, deceased, inventor, banker and public official, was born December 22, 1842, in Connersville, Ind., son of Thomas and Lydia (Frost) Robertson, natives of Westchester county, New York. He was the eldest of five children. After finishing high school he became a clerk to a quartermaster in the United States Navy at the age of nineteen. At the age of twenty-one he was commissioned paymaster of the flag ship “Carondelet” for a fleet of twenty-one vessels. On account of sickness he resigned after a service of four years, and after remaining one year at a sanitarium in New York he entered the college at Marietta, Ohio, taking the full collegiate course. He then took a commercial course in Chicago, all at his own expense. He became clerk in a bank at Muncie, Ind., and later in Evansville, Ind. In 1880 he organized the Monticello National Bank at Monticello, Ind., becoming its cashier and its active head. Three years later he came to Mt. Vernon and became assistant cashier of the First National Bank. Under President Harrison’s administration he was appointed chief of the redemption division of the United States Treasury, holding this office ten years. He assisted in counting all the funds in the United States treasury for both the outgoing and incoming administrations of Presidents Cleveland and Harrison. Mr. Robertson also was an inventor, having patented the Robertson machine gun, which he sold to the Government for use in the army and navy. He had a number of other patents, among which was the automobile seat. He retired from active life in 1899 and died July 5, 1912. In politics he was a Republican and his fraternal affiliations were with the Knights Templars. On June 10, 1875, Mr. Robertson married Miss Anna Pullar Lockwood, daughter of John M. and Caroline Charlotte (Newman) Lockwood. She was born November 23, 1852, at Evansville, Ind. John M. Lockwood was a descendant of Edmund Lockwood, who came with Governor Winthrop and his Pilgrim band in 1630. Mr. and Mrs. Robertson had one child, Estella Lockwood. She lives with her mother at 604 Main street, Mt. Vernon, on Lot No. 179, corner of Main and Sixth streets, which is the same lot on which the first school house in Posey county was built. Miss Robertson is an expert musician and a teacher of theory, harmony and composition. She was educated in Chicago and in Washington, D. C. Mrs. Robertson is a literary woman, making frequent contributions to the press on historic subjects and on present day matters of general interest.