Thomas Robertson was born in 1817 in Cambridge, New York, where his family maintained a close friendship with the Corbett family. After Henry Winslow Corbett left New York in 1851 to pursue a trade good business in the newly founded Oregon Territory, Robertson and his wife, Mary Freeland Corbett (sister of Henry), later met him in 1856. Upon arrival, Robertson joined Corbett’s business, eventually forming Robertson Heavy Hardware, which sold wholesale goods.

Robertson and his wife had two sons, William Edie (1854-1939), and David (1856-1891). Both sons grew up in Portland, but completed educations at the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. William Edie later worked for Corbett, Failing & Co. David Robertson and John R. Foster operated the retail hardware store Foster & Robertson. In 1893, the two companies consolidated to form Corbett, Failing, and Robertson.

David Robertson married Hannah Hodges in 1884. He died seven years later without any children. William Edie Robertson married Sarah (Sadie) Adams Wood, who arrived in Portland in 1880 to visit family. They had six children: Thomas (1881-1924); Louise (died in infancy, 1884); Nan Wood (1885-1928); David (1888-1945); Mary Corbett (1891-1986); and John “Jack” Wood (1894-1956). Mary Corbett was the goddaughter of Henry Winslow Corbett, and never married. William Edie took his family on two trips around the world, first in 1907 and again from 1910 to 1912. The eldest son, Thomas Robertson, married Kathleen Burns in 1910. She was the great-granddaughter of Captain John Heard Couch.

Nan Wood Robertson, a popular Portland socialite, married George Atkinson Warren in 1914. George’s father, Frank Manley Warren, died on the Titanic in 1912, after spending three months in Europe with his wife to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. His wife, Anna Sofia Bates Atkinson, survived the wreck. George and Nan had two sons, George Jr. (1917-1921), and William “Billy” Robertson (1923-1945). Billy, the only remaining son of Nan and George, was a radio technician on the USS Indianapolis, who later perished when the ship was sunk in 1945 by a torpedo.