Robert was a man of unusual ability and although he could not write his own name, he represented Scituate as Deputy to the Colony Court for 17 years.  He helped with the layout of the first roads and in dealings with the Indians negotiated a six mile tract of land for which he was granted 700 acres.  He established the boundary between Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony and settled the affairs of the Kennebeck Plantation which had trouble with the Indians and was granted another 200 acres.  He built sawmills which were much needed by the Colony.  In 1656 the Colony raised a Troop of Horse for defence and Robert was made a Cornet.  Robert had nine children and many descendants of whom the best known is John Batterson Stetson.

John Stetson was born in 1830 in Orange, New Jersey, the son of a hatter.  In 1850 John contracted tuberculosis and was given only a few months to live.  He decided to spend them out of New Jersey and travelled West.  By the time he reached St Louis his health was much improved and he worked in a brickyard which he eventually owned.  Sadly the Missouri flooded and washed it away.

John then decided to go to Colorado and prospect for gold.  On the journey he and his fellow travellers discovered that their tents of animal skins stank and let water in at the seams.  John, remembering his hatters skills, made a waterproof material by shaving beaver and rabbit skins with his hatchet.  He then agitated the fur and sprayed the layers of fine hairs with water from his mouth until he had a thick sheet of felt.  This he dipped into boiling water to shrink, producing a material both waterproof and soft.  He then made a hat from the felt with a wide brim and a high crown.  His fellow prospectors made fun of it but they noticed that it kept off the rain, snow and sun and also held water.  A passing bushwacker bought if from him for a five dollar gold piece.  

After years of barely profitable gold digging he went to Philadelphia and, with 100 dollars, set up as a hatter.  First he made ‘fashionable’ hats but these sold slowly so he made a felt hat like his first one which he called ‘Boss of the Plains’.  First there was a trickle of orders then a flood and eventually he supplied 10,000 dealers through 150 wholesalers.  He prospered, building well equipped factories, and caring for his workers.  When he retired he founded and endowed the Stetson University in Florida.

The Stetson became the hat of the cattleman, the lawman, the sheepherder, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Texas Rangers, US Marine Corps, the Boy Scouts and many a film star.

The Stetson Kindred of America is a website set up to encourage and support antiquarian, genealogical and historical research with reference to the ancestors and the descendants of Robert Stetson.