Meet some of the people who lovingly cared for Chinsegut land for generations before us.
Jane Addams
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jane Addams visited Chinsegut in 1932. She initially became connected to Raymond Robins in their Settlement House work in Chicago and the two later served on the Chicago School Board together. Margaret’s meetings with the National Women’s Trade Union League met at Addams’ Hull House in its early years. By the time Jane and her friend Mary visited Chinsegut in 1932, they had been friends with the Robins’ for over three decades.
Chinsegut Guest
Lilly Brummerhof
Lilly Brummerhof began working at Chinsegut in 1911 and lived in a house where the dining hall is now located. As “Keeper of the Fowls” she cared for over 1500 chickens, ducks, and turkeys. When the US Government took over the property in 1932, a government worker said “never before had he seen any chickens so healthy and so evidently well cared for as Lilly’s!” Lilly also accompanied Margaret Robins on her National Women’s Trade Union League work trips as well as Robins’ family vacations. Lilly holds the record as longest serving Chinsegut employee - a remarkable 41 years! Her hard work is commemorated on a plaque on the Chinsegut Sanctuary grounds.
Chinsegut Keeper of the Fowls
Chinsegut OwnerFrancis Ederington
Francis Higgins Ederington purchased Lake Lindsey Plantation from Byrd in 1851 and moved his wife, Precious Ann, their four young children, from South Carolina to this hill. Francis expanded farming operations to over 1600 acres, which were worked by thirty-six enslaved people. They grew a wide variety of crops including sugar cane, tobacco, cotton, and corn. He also timbered the land, selling pine trees to the Faber Pencil Company in New York. Francis also opened a mercantile shop in Tampa, which he stocked by putting supplies on the otherwise empty ships coming from New York to retrieve the wood.
The home he built here now serves as the museum, though the porches were added by his daughter, Charlotte.
Frank Ederington
Frank Ederington was one of three boys born to Francis and Precious Ann. He was born and raised at Chinsegut (then called Lake Lindsey Plantation) and then purchased his own farm closer to the city of Brooksville. Frank’s home, at 701 Museum Court in Brooksville, is now run as Dolan House Bed and Breakfast.
Chinsegut Dweller
Precious Ann Ederington
Precious Ann Nevitt Ederington made the arduous journey from South Carolina to Florida while pregnant with her fifth child. She bravely left a comfortable life in an established community for that of a pioneer in a sparsely populated Hernando County. The arduous wagon train trip, including furniture, farm animals, feed, seed, and over 30 people took several months to complete. When the baby she was carrying, Joseph, was born, he only lived one month. Precious Ann went on to have six more children for a total of eleven. When her husband died in 1866, she managed operations of The Lake Lindsey Plantation. Though postwar inflation drove many from the county, Precious Ann was able to keep the farm running.
Chinsegut Owner
Chinsegut GuestThomas & Mina Edison
Thomas and Mina Edison wintered in Fort Myers and had mutual interests with the Robins in city beautification, education, philanthropy, and civic engagement. Mina was the second wife of Thomas, and the daughter of Chautauqua Institution founder, Lewis Miller. Raymond had spoken many times at Chautauqua for decades prior to the Edisons’ visit to Chinsegut. Thomas was especially interested in Chinsegut because of the eighteen varieties of bamboo on the grounds. He was considering bamboo as an option for filaments for his new lightbulb and Chinsegut provided him with an abundance of options! The Edisons came to Chinsegut with Dr. and Mrs. John Kunkel Small.
Fielder Harris
Fielder Harris first met Raymond Robins on Bodine Grove. Fielder quickly became Raymond’s primary mentor and teacher and Raymond promised to come back some day and make him manager of his estate. When Elizabeth purchased Chinsegut, Raymond located Fielder in Tampa and brought him here as Estate Manager. Because both Elizabeth and Raymond had primary homes elsewhere, Fielder and his family lived in the Chinsegut Manor house the vast majority of the year. He planted the St. Augustine grass still on the grounds today and oversaw both farming and landscaping . Raymond and Fielder took an adventurous trip to Sagamore Hill to meet Theodore Roosevelt, fulfilling a dream of Fielder’s to meet TR.
Chinsegut Manager
Margaret Robins Harris
Margaret Robins Harris was named after her godmother, Margaret Robins. The daughter of Fielder and Precious Ann “Pet” Harris, she was born and raised at Chinsegut. Margaret is one of the most photographed people at Chinsegut, shown working, playing and in formal celebrations. In her teen years, she worked as the housekeeper at Chinsegut. Margaret was the first member of her family to receive formal education. Then the Robins’ paid for her to attend Tuskegee Institute in Alabama where she studied nursing. She returned to Brooksville, serving as a youth counselor and also lived for awhile in Johnstown, PA. Margaret was especially close to Lisa von Borowsky. The girls were close in age and shared a love of the outdoors.
Chinsegut Dweller
Chinsegut DwellerPrecious Ann Harris
Precious Ann “Pet” Washington Harris
Hasso van der Kreuzschanze
Hasso von der Kreuzschanze did not only have the longest name of any Chinsegut pet; he also is the most photographed. The Great Dane belonged to Lisa von Borowsky lived on the grounds in the 1930s and 1940s. Hasso was dubbed its protector. He fraternized with cats and chickens and even let small children (like Margaret’s nephew, Quintus) ride him like a horse.
Chinsegut Pet
Byrd Pearson
Chinsegut OwnerByrd Pearson was born in South Carolina. An attorney and planter, he moved to this land in the 1840s to claim land available from the Armed Occupation Act. He named it “Lake Lindsey Plantation” and farmed crops he knew like cotton, sugar cane and tobacco. He planted a line of citrus trees leading to the log cabin in which he lived with his wife and four children. Byrd sold the property in 1851, moved to Jacksonville, and was elected to the Florida Supreme Court. He died in 1859 of typhoid.
No photos have been found of Byrd’s wife, Elizabeth Legare Croft Pearson, to date. Also born in South Carolina, she died in that State in May 1859, just five months before her husband.
Chinsegut DwellerFloride Lydia Pearson Fleming
Floride (pronounced Florida) Lydia Pearson Fleming was a baby when she moved here with her parents, Byrd and Elizabeth. She lived here until she was eight. In later years, she recalled vast numbers of wildlife traversing their fields, including black bears, wolves, Osceola turkeys, and the now-extinct colorful Carolina Parakeet. In a return visit to Chinsegut in 1925, she told the Brooksville Herald Newspaper the Carolina Parakeets traveled in swarms, “like a great pink cloud sailing through the sky.”
She became Florida’s 15th First Lady when her husband, Francis, was elected Governor in 1888. Floride was a vocal advocate for promoting Florida history.
Elizabeth Robins
Elizabeth Robins was the oldest of seven children. A bright student, her father encouraged her to become a doctor or architect, but Elizabeth’s heart was set on acting. She launched her career in New York and London, and tours took her all around the continental US. She later moved to London and is best known for bringing Henrik Ibsen plays to England and was also involved in leadership in the Woman’s Suffrage movement. She purchased this property in 1905 as a retreat for her brother Raymond and herself. She wrote, “For this was to be a place where my fellow-dreamer and I should not only rest, but having rested, work as never before.” She authored 14 novels, several of them written right here on this land.
Chinsegut Owner
Margaret Dreier Robins
Margaret Dreier Robins, a Gilded Age New York heiress and labor activist, met Raymond Robins in April 1905 and married him in June. Her focus was on labor conditions for women and children, though she also testified before Congress to advocate for the eight hour workday bill. A renowned philanthropist, Margaret used her financial resources to hire tutors and nurses for working women and children. Locally, she helped start the first library, YWCA, and paid for visiting nurses to provide medical care to rural Hernando. She also founded Hernando’s Institute on Negro Education and provided land for a school.
Margaret loved flowers and imported plants to Chinsegut from all around the world.
Chinsegut Owner
Chinsegut OwnerRaymond Robins
Raymond Robins was the youngest of the Robins children. When he was three, his mother went to a sanatorium and Raymond was eventually sent to live with cousins operating a citrus farm, Bodine Grove, in Brooksville. After mining coal and phosphate as a teenager, he became an attorney, primarily focusing his efforts on creating safer working conditions for laborers.
When Elizabeth purchased this property, the siblings named it “Chinsegut,” an Innuit word that means “spirit of lost things.” Raymond served as an advisor to seven Presidents “from Roosevelt to Roosevelt” and toured the world on religious and political campaigns. William Jennings Bryan called Raymond “The Orator of the Age.”
Jane Cole Scrivens
Jane Cole Scrivens is often mentioned in Robins’ letters, but much remains to be discovered about her life. She was married three times, but her maiden name is unknown. Her prior employment is unclear, but she is in the earliest Robins’ photographs at Chinsegut in 1906. Letters show Jane worked as a housekeeper and a cook. She was pivotal in scrubbing the house down after a second floor fire in 1926 so they could host a 300 person community gathering two days after the fire! Margaret wrote to her sister Mary that Jane loved listening to the victrola, especially vocal arrangements. Elizabeth Robins seemed especially connected to Jane and always sought to hire her on her visits.
Chinsegut Staff
Charlotte Ederington Snow
Charlotte Ederington Snow was approximately six years old when she moved to this land. The oldest of the eleven Ederington children, when her parents passed away, the twenty year old
Charlotte took over raising her siblings and managing the estate. She married JR Snow and they had seven children of their own. Charlotte and JR renamed the property “Snow Hill” and purchased her siblings’ shares which kept the 1600 acres intact. In addition to her work on the farm, Charlotte served as a teacher at the Lake Lindsey school and she and JR donated books to it. During their ownership, they added the porches to the manor house and finished the third floor to accommodate their growing family.
Chinsegut Owner
Chinsegut OwnerJoseph Russell Snow
Joseph Russell (JR) Snow married Charlotte Ederington in 1871. He had served as a doctor in the Civil War and decided to set up a dental practice in Brooksville. Family records indicate his office was in the southwest parlor of the house and a red rubber mouth guard was found in an archaeological dig behind the house. While continuing some Ederington crops, he also expanded operations on the farm to include sweet potatoes and citrus. In 1894, when a statewide freeze decimated citrus crops, the trees from his property helped propagate new groves for many farms in Brooksville. In addition to his farming and dental practice, JR also served in the Florida Legislature and as a Hernando County Commissioner.
Lisa von Borowsky
When Margaret & Raymond Robins decided to move to Chinsegut full-time, they hired a young German immigrant, Lisa von Borowsky. Initially serving as their cook, she was transferred to the grounds because of her high skill with plants and her deep love of the outdoors.
Margaret nicknamed her, “The Daughter of Chinsegut,” and as the Robins’ aged, Lisa took on more and more of the management of the estate. In addition to her leadership at Chinsegut, she was also a founder of the Florida Audubon Society, the Hernando Humane Society, and the Florida Birds of Prey Sanctuary. As the Robins’ heiress, she donated large sums to local charities, and made her estate an Audubon Preserve, called Ahhochee Hill Sanctuary.
Chinsegut Gardener & Wildlife Manager
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Car Washington
Lizzie Washington holds the record as the person who lived longest at Chinsegut - 83 years - a record that can never be broken now that the land is managed by the government. Lizzie came to the land as an enslaved eight year old, working for the Ederingtons in their household. Following Emancipation, she became employed by the Ederingtons and then by the Snows. When Elizabeth Robins bought the property, Lizzie reluctantly agreed to a job as her laundress, but she spent most of her time with Ernest Snow’s family (who lived on the portion of Chinsegut by the Memorial Fountain).
Chinsegut Dweller
Enjoying Chinsegut Quintus Dreier & Hasso
Gilliam Washington