Meet the People of the Stone Building
The Robbins family and their descendants played major roles in Lexington’s history.
Eli Robbins built the stunning Ellen Stone Building Lyceum in 1833. He also constructed an observatory tower and carriage paths for the public at the top of Mount Independence – and possibly Lexington’s earliest workforce housing for his fur business employees.
The family actively participated in social justice movements, fighting for abolition and women’s suffrage. They publicly opposed slavery at a time when Massachusetts was considering banning anti-slavery public speech altogether.
Ellen Stone, who deeded her namesake building to the town, was the first woman elected to public office in Lexington. She was Eli Robbins’ granddaughter.
Read on to learn more about this inspiring family.
The Robbins Family Tree
Click on someone in the family to learn more about them!
Eli Robbins
Lyceum Builder, Businessman, Abolitionist
Hannah Robbins
Anti-Slavery Activist
Abigail Lothrop
Elder Sister
Stillman Lothrop
Abolitionist and Educator
Julia Barrett
Artist, Abolitionist, Suffragist
Ellen Stone Sr.
Activist and Abolitionist
Ellen Stone Jr
Benefactor, Elected Official
Eli Robbins (1786-1856)
Lyceum Builder, Businessman, Abolitionist
Eli Robbins operated a fur-dressing business and imported dry goods in East Lexington and built Robbins Hall, now known as the Ellen Stone Building, in 1834. This lyceum hall provided space for educational lectures and meetings. Eli also built roads, a post office, and housing for his workers. He was a lifelong abolitionist. In his old age, Robbins organized a petition to oppose the slave-catchers who descended upon Massachusetts after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act.
Hannah Robbins (1787-1864)
Anti-Slavery Activist
Hannah Simonds Robbins came from a notable Lexington family with a strong Revolutionary War legacy. She married Eli Robbins in 1809. Hannah supported the anti-slavery movement, befriending activists such as the Alcott family and participating in the Middlesex County Anti-Slavery Society. Hannah was remembered for her dedication to the anti-slavery cause, as praised in her obituary in The Liberator.
Abigail Robbins Lothrop (1814-1903)
Elder Sister
Eli and Hannah Robbins had seven children. After their first daughter Hannah Maria was born deaf, Abigail filled the role of lieutenant mother as the next oldest sister, chastising her more free spirited siblings in letters for insufficient piety and devotion. Like her sisters Ellen and Julia, Abigail went to boarding school in New Hampshire at the rigorous Adams Female Academy. Abigail married Rev. Stillman Luther Lothrop, an outspoken abolitionist who died in 1859. Abigail lived out her life in the Stone Building.
Stillman Luther Lothrop (1811-1859)
Abolitionist and Educator
Rev. Stillman Luther Lothrop was an outspoken critic of the churches that refused to criticize slave-owning. He resigned his post at the Third Baptist Church of Boston over this issue. The Stone Building was deeded to Lothrop around 1840, and he founded a coeducational private school there. He arranged for anti-slavery meetings and speakers at the Stone Building. His marriage to Abigail Robbins disintegrated, and he died on the Caribbean island of St. Croix.
Julia Robbins Barrett (1819-1900)
Artist, Abolitionist, Suffragist
Julia, daughter of East Lexington businessman Eli Robbins, was an abolitionist, a carpet designer for the Lowell Company, and a suffragist.
The fourth daughter of Eli and Hannah Simonds Robbins of East Lexington, Julia served as secretary to her father. She also enrolled at the Boston School of Design, and worked as a carpet designer for five years. A persistent activist, she moved to Concord in 1860 when she married dairy farmer John Barrett, and continued her lifelong commitment to anti-slavery organizing and promoting women’s suffrage.
Ellen Adelia (Robbins) Stone Sr.
(1817-1890)
Activist and Abolitionist
Ellen Adelia Stone recorded details about many of the Lyceum lectures and her family’s abolitionist discussions in her diary. A lifelong abolitionist, suffragist, and education activist, her obituary appeared in the Women’s Journal.
Ellen Adelia Stone Jr.
(1854-1944)
Benefactor, Elected Official
Ellen A. Stone Jr. followed her mother’s educational footsteps. She attended Boston University Law School in 1889, and was the first woman elected to public office in Lexington, serving on the Lexington School Board. She deeded the Ellen Stone Building to the Town of Lexington in 1892 for $2,000, a fraction of its value.