our history

Our History

Celebrating our 138th year!

Robinson started when cotton was at $.08 a pound, when eggs sold for $.10 a dozen, and when Charlotte had a population of 11,000 people. In March of 1887, the Rev. C.W. Robinson began holding regular services once a month in the afternoons.

Now, things are a tad more expensive, and Charlotte is growing in leaps and bounds, but Robinson still stands as a part of this community.

History of Robinson Presbyterian Church 1877-1960

This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the Lord.

Psalm 102:18

Robinson Presbyterian Church, located in Charlotte, North Carolina, grew out of a mission school which was conducted on the McComb School House, the site of which is near the church building.

At the time, the Presbyterians of the community were members of Philadelphia and Rocky River Presbyterian Churches and the First Presbyterian Church of Charlotte. At the request of Mrs. E. P. Gaither, the session of Philadelphia Presbyterian appointed Ruling Elder George Junker to lead the school. The school was conducted for two or three years, when a movement was begun to organize a church in the community.

During that period, the Reverend C. W. Robinson, then pastor of Sugar Creek Presbyterian Church, preached once each month in the afternoons in the schoolhouse and in the open air under the trees – the facilities being a pulpit and log-plank benches on which the congregation of 25 – 30 members sat.

When Mecklenburg Presbyterian held its spring meeting in 1886, at Morven Church, Anson County, the Reverend William McDonald placed before the group the availability of organizing a church at or near the McComb School house.

Presbytery met in Charlotte on December 23 of that year and made the following order: “That Reverend G. D. Parks, Reverend W. A. McDonald, and Reverend C. W. Robinson; Elders J. T. Flowe and C. H. Wolfe, are hereby appointed to organize a church, if the way be clear, at or near the McComb School House.”

This commission visited the field in August 1887, and again in October, at which time plans were laid to build a church structure. A committee on finance and a buildings committee were appointed.

On November 28, 1887, the Reverend C. W. Robinson preached, and on the following day the commission met with the people to organize the congregation into a church. These exercises were held in the McComb School House.