Thomas Robeson Jr. was born in Bladen County, North Carolina on January 11, 1740. In 1775 he became a colonel in the Bladen County Regiment of the North Carolina Militia and led troops at the Battle of Moores Creek Bridge in 1776. He resigned his commission in 1779 and was replaced by Col. Thomas Brown, his brother-in-law through Brown's late first wife Sarah Bartram. He later led troops again at the Battle of Elizabethtown in 1781. Following the war he served in the North Carolina State Legislature. He died in Bladen County on May 1, 1785.