1a.  Mortimer Delvin Robards, born 1794, died 1869.  His wife, Liddie Shain, born June 4, 1792, died July 30, 1864.  She was a daughter of William Shain, owner of the salt wells in Bullitt county, Kentucky.  Mortimer D. Robards and Liddie Shain married January 4, 1817, and had five children, viz.:  1 Mariah Lewis, 2 Charles Shain, 3 Elizabeth, 4 William J. and 5 Thomas S. 

William Johnston Robards died at his home, 716 Twenty-seventh street, at 8:20 o'clock, February 19, 1905, after an illness of nearly a year.  Mr. Robards was born in Bullitt county in 1822 and had lived in Jefferson county nearly all his life.  During the greater part of his life and within a few months of his death he was actively engaged in business in Louisville.

Mr. Robards was forced to practically retire from business life last April, when he fell in the yard in the rear of his home and dislocated his hip.  At the time it appeared as if he could survive but a few weeks on account of his age, but his strong constitution finally pulled him through and he rallied sufficiently to leave his bed.  The improvement was not for long, however, and during the past year his death has been expected on numerous occasions, although at others he seemed to rally and total recovery seemed possible.

Three weeks ago he suffered a relapse which left him very weak, and although he was ablt to talk to his friends almost to the hour of his death, his condition grew weaker so rapidly the attending physicians announced that his death could not be deferred much longer.  Early yesterday morning he announced that he felt much weaker and told his son, Stewart Robards, who had been watching his bedside almost constantly during his illness, that he was ready to go and felt that the end of his life was near.

Mr. Robards was born February 17, 1822, and his death took place two days after his eighty-third birthday.  William Johnston Robards was born in Bullitt county, Kentucky, the son of Moritmer D.

Robards, one of the first settlers of Kentucky.  His mother was also born in Kentucky, an old Indian fort on the Bardstown road serving as her birthplace.  This stronghold (Fort Sullivan) was the third of its kind to be constructed in the state as a protection to early settlers from the Indians.  Mr. Robards's father came to Kentucky at the close of the war of 1812, through which he served as a captain. William J. Robards moved to Jefferson county, Kentucky, in 1828 (being six years old) with his parents who settled a few miles from Louisville on the Newburg road.  During his early youth he was employed on the farm with his father although occasional visits to Louisville made him acquainted with business men in what was little more than a village at that time, and as the city grew in population and business life he decided to take up his residence in the center of activity.  During his life on the farm he acquired thorough business methods from men of the city, and when he entered the insurance field his business immediately prospered.  During his life in the insurance business he became known for his honest, energetic dealings, and he was never found unwilling to talk upon his favorite subjects — "The prospects of the insurance business and its possibities to a business man," even during his last illness when visited by his friends he freely expressed his views and related stories of his life.

Mr. William J. Robards was married in 1856 to Miss Mary Shain, who was also born in Jefferson county, Kentucky.  She died September, 1898.  He is survived by one son, Stewart Robards, and one daughter, Miss Maggie L. Robards, with whom he lived.  During his life he did not become a member

of a secret organization on account of peculiar beliefs concerning such institutions.  Possessed of an unusually retentive mind he had the history of Louisville and even the state at his tongue's end and was never more pleasantly engaged than in recounting happenings and incidents of pioneer days of Louisville and Jefferson county.  He spent his entire life about Louisville and saw it grow from a small village to a populous city.  He could tell interesting stories of pioneer citizens, of the onward move of civilization in Kentucky and found interesting pastime in reading and criticising the numerous histories touching upon pioneer times in the state.

His grandfather, who was William Shain, once owned most of the land on which Louisville is built, and Mr. Robards recently told of a deal between his grandfather and a man named Glass, by which Mr. Glass became the owner of the land on which the block on Jefferson street between Second and Third is built, the consideration being two side saddles for Mr. Shain's two daughters.  William J. Robards knew personally all the older citizens of Louisville, and was highly esteemed by all of them.  He presented Co. R.T. Durett with his wedding boots, was a warm personal friend of George D. Prentice, the late W.N. Haldeman and all the older citizens whose lives with his own were linked closely with the history of Louisville and Jefferson county.

The funeral was held in the afternoon of February 21, 1905, at Christ Church Cathedral of which he was a member.  His body was buried in Cave Hill cemetery.

From the Louisville Herald of October 16, 1904,

we copy a short item of William J. Robards during his sickness:

William J. Robards, a pioneer of the city of Louisville and a member of one of the most prominent families of Kentucky, is a grandson of Capt. Lewis Robards.  Capt. Robards was the first husband of Rachael Donaldson, a belle of the early days of North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, who afterward became the wife of General Andrew Jackson.  She was the woman with whom Jackson, when but twenty-four years of age, long before he became famous as a soldier and statesman, eloped from the home of her husband's mother and whom he married.  Historians say Mrs. Jackson's first marriage was an unhappy one, that she was superior to her environment, and that she abandoned the home of her husband in Kentucky and sought solace at the home of her mother in Tennessee near Nashville.  These statements, the records of the courts and traditions of the Robards family do not verify, and William J. Robards, though prostrated with illness that may prove fatal and bearing heavily the weight of eighty-four years, becomes indignant whenever the subject is mentioned.  He vehemently denounces Jackson for despoiling his ancestor's home and severely criticises historians who, in order to shield from a crime of his youth, the man who later became president of the United States, have placed his grandfather and family in a false position before posterity.  "Andrew Jackson despoiled my grandfather's home, stole his wife and married that woman two years before a divorce had been obtained," exclaimed Mr. Robards with emphasis, "and this after receiving the hospitalities of my grandfather's home.  My grandfather

was one of the highly esteemed men of his time in Kentucky, and his family was one of the most prominent in the territory, equal to, if not better, than that of the woman to whom he first married.