Robert Willlis Julian was born May 31, 1871, in Forsythe County, Georgia, son of R. M. Julian, owner of the Chattahoochee mines and one of the gold mines near Marietta (same State), in which John Winters is part proprietor. Robert’s mother was a Miss Susan Willis, daughter of Captain Priestly Willis, of Dawson County, Georgia, a descendant of the Doherty family, the issue of the first white man that ever married a Cherokee. Robert first attended school at Ringgold, Murray County, Georgia, for one year, after which he was a pupil in the public institutions at Marietta, Shylo and Bethlehem, and later at the high schools of Chester and Gainesville, Georgia, graduating at Moore’s Business University, Atlanta, 1887. IN 1889 he went to Going Snake district, Cherokee Nation, and spent six months at the Baptist Mission School, after which he moved to Checotah, and soon became a commercial traveler, spending twelve months or more in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. Mr. Julian returned to Checotah in June 1891, and in connection with his brother, Edwin C. Julian, of St. Louis, became an extensive hay contractor. He has also been a member of the Peerless Cotton Seed Company, of Atlanta, Georgia, and at the death of Henry W. Grady, one of the partners, withdrew from the firm, accepting Arkansas, Texas and Indian Territory as his share. Mr. Julian has been most successful in the sale of this marvelous cotton seen (the Peerless), which has been known to yield as much as four bales to an acre. Mr. Julian and his brother Edwin are about to start a mercantile business on a large scale, making headquarters at Muskogee, with branch supply stores at various points on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad in the Creek and Cherokee Nations. One of the most picturesque and perhaps the oldest relic among the Cherokees is in possession of this gentleman, and at present deposited in the Constitution building, Atlanta. It is a marble ball erected on a pedestal of the same mineral, about three feet in height and weighs 294 pounds. It was wrought by hand by a Cherokee named James Daniel and an Englishman, and somehow fell into the possession of Bailey F. Julian, grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Mr. Julian was elected as a committee clerk in November, 1891, but his services, as well as those of nine others elected to clerk for the various Senate committees, were dispensed with, owing to the passage of a resolution to cut down all unnecessary expense. Mr. Julian is a well educated young man, with plenty of ambition and a good prospect before him. He is still unmarried.
