Background
Robert Erskine was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, the son of Rev. Ralph and Margaret (Simson) Erskine.
Robert Erskine was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, the son of Rev. Ralph and Margaret (Simson) Erskine.
He received his elementary education at the Dunfermline Grammar School and was a student at the University of Edinburgh in 1748.
Because of the necessity of earning his own living, however, he was soon obliged to interrupt his college course, and it was not until 1752 that his name reappeared on the university rolls.
Shortly afterward he left college again and went to London where he engaged in business.
Through the treachery of his partner, Erskine became heavily involved financially and was declared insolvent, but because of his excellent character and sincerity of purpose he escaped a jail sentence.
Gradually he payed off his indebtedness.
In 1770, he was asked to go to America as the representative of a group of British capitalists who had invested money in the American Iron Company, whose extensive mines were located in the region which is now the upper part of Passaic County, New Jersey. To prepare himself for this mission, he spent several months in making a survey of iron mining and manufacturing operations in Great Britain.
Erskine and his wife Elizabeth, whom he had married during the years of his struggle for success, arrived in New York June 5, 1771.
He at once entered upon his duties and proved himself to be a man of excellent capacity and thoroughly devoted to the interests of his employers.
As early as 1774, however, he was in active sympathy with the colonists, and in the summer of 1775 organized the men in his employ into a military company.
Their services were offered to the Provincial Congress, which commissioned Erskine a captain in the Bergen County militia and exempted his men from compulsory military service in any other company.
A little later, when Washington passed through northern New Jersey on his way from the Hudson River, he made the acquaintance of Erskine, and upon learning that the latter was an able civil engineer, well acquainted with the region west of the Hudson, offered him the position of geographer and surveyor-general to the Continental Army.
Duly commissioned on July 27, 1777, Erskine began work at once upon a series of maps, depicting the physical features of the country from the Hudson River westerly to Ringwood and from Jersey City to Cornwall.
His death, which occurred on Oct. 2, 1780, was the result of an illness contracted while in the field.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on Jan. 31, 1771.