After his discharge, he moved his family to Missouri in 1862 to participate in the construction of the Missouri Pacific Railroad from St. Louis to Kansas City. The younger Robinson was three years old when the family moved again in 1887 to Baraboo, Wisconsin, to be near his mother's family. Amelia Isabella ( Lee) was born in London, England and moved with her parents to the Baraboo area in 1878. She married the senior Robinson at her parents' farm in Merrimack, Wisconsin, some 11 miles from Baraboo, in June 1881. Her husband served as Baraboo City Marshal from 1903 to 1904. The Marshal's office was the predecessor to the city's police department. Brad Jr. and his sisters, Jennie and Nellie, grew up on the Robinsons' small farm across from the Sauk County Fairgrounds. He attended Baraboo public schools and graduated from high school in 1902. Robinson later joked that Baraboo was "made famous by the Ringling Brothers Circus ... and myself." The Circus was founded the same year that Robinson was born. He was a first cousin four times removed of Bradbury Robinson (1752–1801), who fought for the patriots at Concord in 1775. Generations of Robinson descendants have included males named "Bradbury" in honor of the Concord minuteman. 1903: Freshman "star" at Wisconsin Robinson enrolled at the University of Wisconsin and played for the Badgers varsity team as a freshman in the 1903 season. His arrival was seen by a sports reporter at the time as something of a godsend. Writing on August 23, 1903, the unidentified journalist reported: ... a temporary disappointment, the information that O'Brien, the best candidate for the place of Center Remp, had decided not to return to the university, but had accepted a place for $500 to coach the Appleton high school eleven. The disappointment was cured, however, by the announcement that Robinson, who weighs nearly 200 pounds, had resigned his place at the state insane asylum at Mendota [now part of Madison, Wisconsin] and would enter the football squad in perfect trim, having systematically trained for the past six weeks. In Robinson's first and only season at Madison, "the Cardinal team" under Arthur Hale Curtis went 6–3–1, suffering shut-out losses to rivals Minnesota and Michigan. Robinson did get a chance to shine in the Badgers' 87–0 defeat of Beloit on October 17, when he scored two touchdowns. A newspaperman wrote, "Robinson's star work seems