William Drew Robeson I

Who was William Drew Robeson I?

William Drew Robeson I was the father of Paul Robeson and the minister of Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey from 1880 to 1901. The Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church had been built for its black members by the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton.

Robeson escaped from slavery in North Carolina at the age of 15 and went to the free state of Pennsylvania. During the American Civil War, he worked for the Union Army. Afterward he earned an undergraduate degree and one in theology at Lincoln College, a historically black college in Pennsylvania. He went into the ministry. After his marriage, he lived with his family in Princeton, New Jersey. He became a widower in 1904 and served as a pastor at African Methodist Episcopal Zion churches.