May 15, 2018

Emil DeRoboam, nephew of U.S. Hotel proprietress Madame Jeanne DeRoboam Holt, had learned the tailor’s trade as a youth in France. After emigrating to Jacksonville in 1871 with his widowed father, Jean St. Luc DeRoboam, he became a wagon and carriage maker. The Democratic Times newspaper at various times declared Emil to be “an excellent mechanic” and “an excellent wheelwright.” After his father married rich Prussian widow Henrietta Schmidling in 1873, Emil courted and married her daughter Rosa 2 years later. The couple had 4 children. Emil was described as a “progressive man” and “prominent in political undertakings.” In the mid-1880s he purchased the 642 acre “Bellinger land claim” for “general farming and stock raising” and obtained the contract for the “county poor.” For 20 years, Emil was superintendent of the Jackson County poor farm, caring for the county’s wards on his farm. His home, pictured here, still stands on South Stage Road.