The Journals of Robert Hall Tinker, 1851-1869

This is the first in a series of journals written by Robert Hall Tinker (1836-1924). Volume 1, 1851-1869, covers the adolescence of the young Mr. Tinker and the details of his life growing up in western New York until his marriage to Mary Dorr Manny in 1870. Mr. Tinker describes life in antebellum New York, before moving to the ‘Wild West’ of Illinois to make a new home in Rockford. The journals end when Mr. Tinker takes his vows of marriage.\nMr. Robert Hall Tinker (1836-1924) was born in the Sandwich Islands (modern Hawai’i) on the last day of 1836. His parents, Reuben and Mary Tinker, were missionaries in Hawaii throughout the 1830s and returned to the United States in 1840. Robert spent most of his childhood in Westfield, New York. In 1856 he moved to Rockford, Illinois to work at the Manny Reaper Company where he became a successful businessman and the future mayor of Rockford. Inspired by the architecture of Switzerland during a trip to Europe, Mr. Tinker designed a Swiss-style chalet on a bluff overlooking Kent Creek in Rockford. While working at the Manny Reaper Company, Mr. Tinker eventually fell in love with and married the widow Manny (Mary Dorr-Manny) in 1870. The Tinker family was prominent in the community and they lived a happy life until the death of Mary in 1901. Mr. Tinker eventually married his wife’s niece Jessie Dorr and they lived in “Tinker’s Cottage” with their adopted son Theodore until Robert’s death in 1924. Mr. Tinker’s Cottage still stands today as a museum and as a monument to the history of Rockford.