Artist's conception showing original step configuration and chimneys.
Robins law office, left; courthouse, right, by Lenton Slack.
Read the Landmark Designation Report
Read the Landmark Designation Resolution
The Marmaduke Swaim Robins Law Office , a two-room wooden building built around 1860 is the last surviving building on Asheboro's nineteenth century courthouse square. Marmaduke Swaim Robins purchased the office lot on August 21, 1874. Mr. Robins was quite active during the Civil War years, as private secretary to Gov. Zebulon Vance, as treasurer of the State Literary Fund (comparable to Commissioner of Education), as a captain in the Home Guard and as Editor of a newspaper, The Raleigh Conservative. Mr. Robins founded and edited the Randolph Regulator newspaper in Asheboro in 1876. The newspaper’s name later changed to the Courier and is still published today as The Courier-Tribune. Robins died in 1905 and his son Henry Moring Robins used the law office as his office to practice law. Henry Robins served as Mayor of Asheboro from 1907 to 1909 and the law office building was used for town meetings. The building was extensively altered and gutted around 1910. The Randolph County Bar Association began an effort to preserve and restore the law office building around 1990. At some point in the law office building's history it was moved 40 feet from its original location on Main Street. The building was moved back to its original site and painted and restored. It sits on the property owned by the City of Asheboro.
Related Sites:
