It appears that our Webb ancestors began migrating sometime in the 1770s to an area in northwest Georgia lying between the Broad and the Savannah rivers. The land had been purchased from the Indians by the Georgia colony a few years previously, partly to cover the Indians' trading debts with the white settlers. In 1790, it was incorporated as Elbert County, in honor of the Revolutionary War soldier Gen. Samuel Elbert. But at the time the Webbs arrived, the area was still part of Wilkes County.
Various histories say that the first colonists came to the area where a group of Virginians that arrived toward the end of 1773, led by Stephen Heard and his brother Bernard Heard. The initial group might have included a couple named John Webb and Lucy Claiborne and their eight children. They are believed to be our direct ancestors.
One history of Elbert County suggests that the area "began to be populated by two types: fun-loving cavaliers from Virginia and more democratic and unpretentious types from North Carolina." Among the latter group was Martin Deadwyler, a native of Germany who came to the United States around 1780, settled in North Carolina for a half dozen years and then moved to then-Wilkes County sometime between 1784 and 1786. Also arriving about that time was a non-relative: a Baptist minister named Dozier Thornton.
The area's well-drained soil appeared idea for the production of brightleaf tobacco as well as cotton and peanuts--crops that no doubt would have been familiar to settlers from either colony. But while the native land appeared to be welcoming, the natives were not.
Revolution
Given the threat that the colonists posed, the indigenous tribes unsurprisingly tended to side with the British in the Revolutionary War. John McIntosh's History of Elbert County says that because of the Indians' role in the conflict, "What is now Elbert County territory ... suffered many wanton acts of barbarism. Dwellings were burned, crops destroyed, cattle spirited away, fathers murdered and mothers and children driven from their homes and, in many instances, slain and scalped. In truth, it was war to the axe, to the torch, and to the knife in the territory between the Savannah and Broad rivers."
The Federal Writers' Project history of Georgia portrays the Revolutionary War in the state in equally grisly terms. The war "was not one of planned strategic warfare, but of incessant guerrilla strife," it wrote. "With their means of communication cut off, the people had little knowledge of what the patriot forces were doing. A man would fight for a few weeks, hurry home to plant his crop, and then rush back to the military. Confiscation, plunder, torture and outright murder for revenge were common occurrences."
The Webbs were affected in several ways. John Webb's sons Austin, Claiborne and John Burrell (often called John B., and the whom we believe is our ancestor) all served in the Revolution, as evidenced by applications for pensions they filed years later. In his application, Austin confesses that he cannot confirm his believed birth date of Feb. 14, 1757, because "it was burnt in his father's house together with near all his father's property by the Tories." Austin served from February 1779 through around August 1781, and fought at the battle of Kettle Creek and at the first and second sieges of Augusta.
Meanwhile, a pension application filed by one Alexander Smith recounts his service at a Fort Nail in October 1780. "in the march out to the Okmulgee [River]," he wrote, "[we] trailed the track of a body of Cherokee Indians who had captured some three or four of the Webb family from Broad River settlement, Wilkes County. Never overtook the Indians to see them, although came on their fresh camp where their fires were left burning."
The application of John B. Webb, our likely direct ancestor, says he joined the Revolutionary Army around January 1777 and served a number of three-month hitches, mainly stationed at Fort Nail in Wilkes County on the Broad River. His initial service appeared to be relatively quiet until Aug. 25, 1778, when the Cherokees attacked the fort. The Indians didn't capture Fort Nail, John B.'s application says, but they did steal a number of horses, including "the first and only horse which this declarant then owned." Ten weeks later, Cherokees attacked Fort Nail again, this time capturing a nephew of John B. named Claiborne Bellamy.
John B. said he later fought in the Battle of Kettle Creek in Wilkes County on Feb. 14, 1779, as well as performed service in South Carolina. In August 1779 he was discharged with no reasonable chance of getting back to Georgia, so he reports he spent his time "staying as a Georgia refugee, sometime in Virginia and sometimes in North Carolina until the first day of May 1781 when, having been called for by Col. Elijah Clark, he the declarant started from Burke County in the state of North Carolina where he then was to come to the second siege of Augusta. But he was on the day and year last aforesaid shortly after starting thrown from his horse and arm and collarbone broken and his shoulder smashed by which misfortune he was entirely disabled from the performance of any more or further service whatsoever." Thus, in the summer of 1781, he went home. He was probably around 21 years old.
Baptists and Babies
We next hear from John B. sometime after October 1788, when the Rev. Dozier Thornton established Dove's Creek Baptist Church about four miles west of Elberton, the county seat. Among the church's members were John B. Webb, numerous other people with the Webb name, and Martin and Joseph Deadwyler. By 1801, tax digest records suggest the area was thick with Webbs--including a John Webb (possibly John B.'s father, but we can't be sure) who had two slaves and 100 acres of land. The region was nearly equally populated with Deadwylers.
On Oct. 18, 1806, Elbert County records register Burrell Webb as having married Sarah Booth. (One family history recorded before World War I lists the wife as Susan Ann Boothe.) They had 10 children: Fortunatus, Walton Polk, John B. Jr., Paine, Gaines, Washington, Patsy, Elsie, Barbara Angeline, and Elizabeth. Of these, Walton is without question our direct ancestor.
Walton Polk (also known by the family as Pope) Webb was born around 1808 or 1809. On Nov. 13, 1837, he married a fellow teenager named Susannah Deadwyler, a fellow parishioner at Dove's Creek and probably the daughter of Martin Deadwyler. Such unions were quite common in those days; at least a half dozen Webbs and Deadwylers married each other in Elbert County in the 1820s. There were so many Webbs in the area that one community was known as the Webbsboro District.
Walton and Susannah settled in the area, probably farming land that belonged to Susannah's father. They remained members of Dove's Creek Baptist Church, showing up on rosters in 1829 and 1846. There's no word regarding whether they were good farmers, but they certainly weren't any slouches at producing children; over the years they had about 15 of them. I say "about"because names, numbers and birth dates differ markedly depending on who did the recording. My research suggests their names and birth dates are:
- John M. Webb (born 1828)
- Jane M. Webb (1829)
- Jeptha Webb (1830)
- Rebecca Ann Webb (1833)
- Fortunatus Pope Webb (Feb. 16, 1834)
- Joseph H. Webb (1836)
- Philip Elkana Webb (Dec. 25, 1837)
- Barbara Angelina Webb (1840)
- William M. Webb (1841)
- Luther P. Webb (1843)
- Lucinda E. Webb (March 4, 1845)
- Alexander Webb (August 1846)
- Lucy Victoria Webb (July 22, 1848)
- Benjamin Franklin Webb (sometime between 1850 and 1852)
- Americus Stephens Webb (Jan. 21, 1856
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