Minnie Robbins

WOMEN OF WESTPORT POINT

Minnie Alice Swint Robbins (1874-1961)

Music teacher, business owner

1813 Main Road – and owner of the Robbins Tract

Minnie Swint Robbins was born in Stoneham in 1874, the daughter of John W. Swint and Delia Richardson Swint.  Her paternal grandparents were from Germany.  Her father was a baker born in Syracuse, New York.  She married in Boston in 1908 to Charles M. Robbins, who was first a sailor and then a successful jewelry manufacturer and banker, originally from Harwichport in a long line of Harwich residents, but who settled in Attleboro. He was 18 years her senior.  Charles organized the Attleboro Trust Company, and engaged in real estate development in Attleboro, Ma., Florida, Cape Cod and Westport, Ma. She was his second wife, and stepmother to his sons, Lawrence and Chester Robbins. They had one daughter, Dorothy Robbins born in 1910.  Their second daughter, Patricia, died at 4 years old.

A high school graduate,  Minnie was a music teacher in Boston in 1900 and there is a newspaper account that she sang solo in a M.E. Church in Bromfield in 1899.  She gave piano lessons to local children.  Obviously she was musically gifted.  In the 1910 and 1920 censuses she and Charles were in Attleboro where Charles ultimately retired. Charles died in 1929, but he and the family had been living in Westport Point next to Jeannie and Katherine Hall for several years.  In the 1920s, Charles began purchasing property at the Point East, north and south of their home, from Main Road through to the River and South to Cape Bial Lane.  It came to be known as the Charles M. Robbins Tract, with streets named after his sons:  Chester and Lawrence.  In June 1924 it was reported that he was building 5 roads which would service the Robbins development and he was beginning to sell plots, (See Book 25, page 191 Plan Books at the New Bedford Registry of Deeds.)  It was said that both Minnie and Dorothy opposed the development because of the small lots and its incongruity with the historic Point.  Charles died before all the property was sold. Minnie and Dorothy inherited much unsold land which over the years they began to sell, often several lots together so that the lots were not so small.

Minnie and Dorothy were very close and did many activities together in Westport Point.  They started a girl scout troop in 1926 and Minnie continued to support the troop until she died.  Both were active in the Point Methodist Church.  In 1930 Minnie owned a gift shop.  In 1940 Minnie and Dorothy were working in an antique shop which Minnie owned.  This was probably one shop and located in the “corn crib” behind Minnie’s house.   After the Westport Art Group was founded in 1956 by a group of women that included Dorothy, Minnie worked with Dorothy on different events.

Minnie died in 1961 and is buried with her husband in Attleboro, Ma.