Henry Martyn Robert

Who was Henry Martyn Robert?

Henry Martyn Robert was the author of Robert's Rules of Order, which became the most widely used manual of parliamentary procedure and remains today the most common parliamentary authority in the United States.

Robert was born in Robertville, South Carolina, and raised in Ohio, where his father moved the family because of his strong opposition to slavery. Robert's father, Reverend Joseph Thomas Robert, later became the first president of Morehouse College where there is a dormitory on the campus named after him. Robert was nominated to West Point from Ohio, and graduated fourth in his class in 1857. He became a military engineer.

Under command of Silas Casey during the Pig War he built the fortifications on San Juan Island. In the American Civil War, he was assigned to the Corps of Engineers and worked on the defenses of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and several New England ports.

Robert served as Engineer of the Army's Division of the Pacific from 1867 to 1871. He then spent two years improving rivers in Oregon and Washington and six years developing the harbors of Green Bay and other northern Wisconsin and Michigan ports. He subsequently improved the harbors of Oswego, New York, Philadelphia, and Long Island Sound and constructed locks and dams on the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers. As Southwest Division Engineer from 1897 to 1901, Robert studied how to deepen the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River.