Sometime in 1909, Americus learned he was suffering from a disease. Family legend says it was pernicious anemia, a disease of the red blood cells caused by a lack of vitamin B12. Again according to family tales, even in 1909 there were cures known for this disease, but Americus appeared to have become depressed that, because of the disease, he would end up like his brothers, who had suffered for decades from injuries suffered in the Civil War.
Fortunatus, for instance, had filed a pension application in 1905 that ticked off a variety of problems. One affidavit declares: "This applicant is very much enfeebled from age, complaints of rheumatism, and hemorrhoids. Also complains from diabetes."
Rather than faced that future, the story goes, Walton killed himself. We don't know the method of suicide, but we do know he died July 29, 1909.
Martha Lucinda Webb thus was widowed. She stayed that way for the next 24 years, dying Feb. 27, 1933.
Americus, Martha, and infants Vella and Cymenthia are buried in Gary Hill Cemetery in Commerce. About 50 yards away lies the grave of Olive Ann Burns, author of Cold Sassy Tree. Her story of life in Harmony Grove between 1905 and 1910 includes a suicide. I've always wonder if that's more than just a coincidence.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Harmony Grove (1870-1909)
By 1847, Americus was 14 years old and working on his father's farm in Harris County, Ga. Only about seven of the original 17 Webbs were on the farm at the time, but brother Fortunatus was next door and brothers Joseph and Alexander Webb shared a farm two doors away. We don't know what happened next to Americus, but it appears that eventually he took to carpentry, left the farm and left Harris County.
It's not known if he wandered or took a straight line, but Americus ended up in Harmony Grove, Ga., about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta in Jackson County. It came to life largely as the result of being a stop for the local railroad; its corporate limits were defined as one mile in each direction from the depot. Today it's known as Commerce, and it's best known to Georgians as an exit off Interstate 85 that's loaded with outlet malls. But when it was founded in December 1844, it had just 579 residents.
Eventually, at least five of the Webb brothers--Americus, Fortunatus, Alexander, Luther and one brother whom I cannot identify--settled in and around Harmony Grove. We don't know who came first, but we do know they came before the town was incorporated. A March 24, 1883, letters to a Harriett Deadwyler in Harmony Grove from a Teresa Deadwyler living in Texas asks that Harriett "give my love to Aunt Susie Webb's family." Susie refers to Americus' mother, Susannah Deadwyler Webb.
Marriage in Harmony Grove
We know Americus was in Harmony Grove by 1886, because that's when he married Martha Lucinda Wills. She was born in October 1861, roughly 10 months after her parents got married and only eight months before her father died while fighting for the Confederacy. Despite that rough start, Martha belonged to what passed for gentry in the village, as her subsequent step-father was a part of the Hardman family that organized Harmony Grove Mills Inc. in 1893. A Hardman from Harmony Grove served as a governor of Georgia, while many of Martha's direct ancestors were pioneers of Jackson County. One line even goes back to the brother of President Zachary Taylor, which means that this family's two Zachary Taylor Webbs have good reason to take that name.
There also was an ancestor named Martha Diane Pittman (Martha Lucinda Wills' paternal grandmother) who, according to a newspaper clipping, rode horseback with her year-old child (probably Martin Lafayette Wills, who was Martha Lucinda's father) through northeast Georgia to visit her parents. "She was gone about three monhs, and the only news her husband had of her was through the Indians, who reported her safe passage through their villages," according to a newspaper clipping based upon reports by Martha's grandchildren. "She often told her granddaughters that her 'back-board afforded her much benefit on this long ride,' the back-board being a thin, plaint board shaped to fit the spine, with a row of holes on each side, by which it was fastened to a tight-fitting bodice. Evidently a fore-runner of (corset) stays."
Cold Sassy Life
The 1900 census for Harmony Grove lists Americus' profession as a carpenter, but unemployed for the prior two months. It's possible that he had come to help build housing for the textile mill
workers and their families.
Harmony Grove was a typical mill town, the kind of place where everybody knew everybody else. An while it was exemplifying the kind of New South reconstructionism that Henry Grady was promoting in the Atlanta newspapers, a lot of Old South resentments lingered. According to the book Cold Sassy Tree, a fictional romance based on Harmony Grove, the Fourth of July--honoring a concept of independence that these Georgians, in their own way, tried and failed to achieve--wasn't celebrated in Harmony Grove until 40 years after Appomattox.
According to a July 1996 interview with Dr. Charles Owen, grandson of Martha Wills, the original house in Commerce that Americus and Martha lived in burned down. In the new house, "she had a chicken yard in back and troughs were carved out of soapstone," Owen said. "It was a big house down on the corner in which ex-Gov. Hardman lived. He'd make apple cider in his garage."
The descriptions of live provided by Americus' daughter Gertrell, as well as by grandchildren who remembered life there in the 1930s, give extra credence to the descriptions of Turn of the Century life that Commerce native Olive Ann Burns sets down in Cold Sassy Tree.
Wrote Gertrell: "My father had five brothers in Commerce and when I was very small there was lots of visiting. My father would not ... object to my mother taking us five children to Sunday School and church and when we got back home he would have the house in perfect shape and a delicious dinner on the table." (Notes: The family might have raised its children as Baptists, but Americus apparently wasn't a regular.)
"He always had a pretty house and buggy and on Sunday afternoon he would go to see his brothers," Gertrell continued. "He was a good conversationalist and story teller. Some of the stories he told me when I was a child amazed me. He always got me dressed for school, parting my hair in the middle and making two plaits that never came loose. Tied the ends with ribbon.
One of the most useful things he ever gave me was a blackboard that fastened to a wall. It had a roller at the top and I could roll it to learn my ABCs [and] then to read, turn another turn and it was arithmetic. It had chalk and an eraser and a chair to sit in.
"He left all the controlling of his children to mom," Gertrell added. "He would say 'Ask your mother and is she says you can it is all right with me.' She ruled us with an iron hand and not a one went bad. She said she had never head of a Webb girl getting into anything bad."
Americus and Martha had seven children, beginning with twins named Voil (actually Grady Voil) and Vella in February 1888. Vella died a year later. September 1889 saw the arrival of Martin Gilder Webb, followed by Blondine in April 1891, Cymenthia in 1895 (she died in 1896), Gertrelle in November 1896 and Alton Americus in 1904.
It's not known if he wandered or took a straight line, but Americus ended up in Harmony Grove, Ga., about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta in Jackson County. It came to life largely as the result of being a stop for the local railroad; its corporate limits were defined as one mile in each direction from the depot. Today it's known as Commerce, and it's best known to Georgians as an exit off Interstate 85 that's loaded with outlet malls. But when it was founded in December 1844, it had just 579 residents.
Eventually, at least five of the Webb brothers--Americus, Fortunatus, Alexander, Luther and one brother whom I cannot identify--settled in and around Harmony Grove. We don't know who came first, but we do know they came before the town was incorporated. A March 24, 1883, letters to a Harriett Deadwyler in Harmony Grove from a Teresa Deadwyler living in Texas asks that Harriett "give my love to Aunt Susie Webb's family." Susie refers to Americus' mother, Susannah Deadwyler Webb.
Marriage in Harmony Grove
We know Americus was in Harmony Grove by 1886, because that's when he married Martha Lucinda Wills. She was born in October 1861, roughly 10 months after her parents got married and only eight months before her father died while fighting for the Confederacy. Despite that rough start, Martha belonged to what passed for gentry in the village, as her subsequent step-father was a part of the Hardman family that organized Harmony Grove Mills Inc. in 1893. A Hardman from Harmony Grove served as a governor of Georgia, while many of Martha's direct ancestors were pioneers of Jackson County. One line even goes back to the brother of President Zachary Taylor, which means that this family's two Zachary Taylor Webbs have good reason to take that name.
There also was an ancestor named Martha Diane Pittman (Martha Lucinda Wills' paternal grandmother) who, according to a newspaper clipping, rode horseback with her year-old child (probably Martin Lafayette Wills, who was Martha Lucinda's father) through northeast Georgia to visit her parents. "She was gone about three monhs, and the only news her husband had of her was through the Indians, who reported her safe passage through their villages," according to a newspaper clipping based upon reports by Martha's grandchildren. "She often told her granddaughters that her 'back-board afforded her much benefit on this long ride,' the back-board being a thin, plaint board shaped to fit the spine, with a row of holes on each side, by which it was fastened to a tight-fitting bodice. Evidently a fore-runner of (corset) stays."
Cold Sassy Life
The 1900 census for Harmony Grove lists Americus' profession as a carpenter, but unemployed for the prior two months. It's possible that he had come to help build housing for the textile mill
workers and their families.
Harmony Grove was a typical mill town, the kind of place where everybody knew everybody else. An while it was exemplifying the kind of New South reconstructionism that Henry Grady was promoting in the Atlanta newspapers, a lot of Old South resentments lingered. According to the book Cold Sassy Tree, a fictional romance based on Harmony Grove, the Fourth of July--honoring a concept of independence that these Georgians, in their own way, tried and failed to achieve--wasn't celebrated in Harmony Grove until 40 years after Appomattox.
According to a July 1996 interview with Dr. Charles Owen, grandson of Martha Wills, the original house in Commerce that Americus and Martha lived in burned down. In the new house, "she had a chicken yard in back and troughs were carved out of soapstone," Owen said. "It was a big house down on the corner in which ex-Gov. Hardman lived. He'd make apple cider in his garage."
The descriptions of live provided by Americus' daughter Gertrell, as well as by grandchildren who remembered life there in the 1930s, give extra credence to the descriptions of Turn of the Century life that Commerce native Olive Ann Burns sets down in Cold Sassy Tree.
Wrote Gertrell: "My father had five brothers in Commerce and when I was very small there was lots of visiting. My father would not ... object to my mother taking us five children to Sunday School and church and when we got back home he would have the house in perfect shape and a delicious dinner on the table." (Notes: The family might have raised its children as Baptists, but Americus apparently wasn't a regular.)
"He always had a pretty house and buggy and on Sunday afternoon he would go to see his brothers," Gertrell continued. "He was a good conversationalist and story teller. Some of the stories he told me when I was a child amazed me. He always got me dressed for school, parting my hair in the middle and making two plaits that never came loose. Tied the ends with ribbon.
One of the most useful things he ever gave me was a blackboard that fastened to a wall. It had a roller at the top and I could roll it to learn my ABCs [and] then to read, turn another turn and it was arithmetic. It had chalk and an eraser and a chair to sit in.
"He left all the controlling of his children to mom," Gertrell added. "He would say 'Ask your mother and is she says you can it is all right with me.' She ruled us with an iron hand and not a one went bad. She said she had never head of a Webb girl getting into anything bad."
Americus and Martha had seven children, beginning with twins named Voil (actually Grady Voil) and Vella in February 1888. Vella died a year later. September 1889 saw the arrival of Martin Gilder Webb, followed by Blondine in April 1891, Cymenthia in 1895 (she died in 1896), Gertrelle in November 1896 and Alton Americus in 1904.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Rebel Yell (Georgia, 1855-1870)
War and Remembrance
Americus Stephens Webb was a child of the Civil War and, arguably, one of its last victims.
The 15th child of Walton Polk and Susannah Deadwyler Webb, he was at an impressionable age when Union soldiers, tailing back from Sherman's March to the Sea, ransacked his homeland. Decades later, his modest success--in part by marrying well -- led his brothers to join him in a small town northeast of Atlanta. And when he learned he had fallen ill with what appeared to be a debilitating illness, family legend has it that he chose to kill himself rather than end up as crippled as the Confederate veterans in his family.
Americus Stephens Webb was born Jan. 21, 1856, to a family on the move. Like many before them, Walton and Susannah had decided to leave the Elbert County farmland where they had been born and raised, had married and had produced 14 children. It's not certain whether they had hit the road by Americus' birthday, but given the rough highways of the day, one would think that Susannah wouldn't have wanted to ride a wagon while heavy with child.
No records that I've seen indicate how Americus got his name. Perhaps it was a political statement at a time when emotions over slavery and states' rights were white-hot. (Walton didn't own slaves then, but then again most Southerners didn't, and the two parts of Georgia where he lived tended to have fewer slaves than other regions of the state.) The middle name, Stephens, could have come in honor of Alexander Hamilton "Little Alec" Stephens, a noted Georgia politicians. It could have been a political statement as well--Stephens opposed secession but nevertheless became vice president of the Confederacy.
In any case, by the time Americus was four years old he was living with his family in Beula, Ala., just across the border from Georgia. Four doors away in one direction was Walton's brother, John B. Webb Jr., a carpenter. Four doors in the other direction took him to Americus' elder brother, Fortunatus Webb, who was becoming a cabinet maker.
Battle Tested, Battle Weary
At least two of Americus' brothers and one brother-in-law fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. None emerged intact.
Brother Philip Elcain (also known as Elkana) Webb was a member of the "Mountain Tigers"-- the 31st Regiment of the Georgia Volunteer Infantry. According to a descendant named Earnest Deadwyler (yes, more evidence of Webbs and Deadwylers intermarrying, this time in Harris County), Philip joined in November 1861 and fought with the Army of Northern Virginia. His wartime experiences included participation at Gettysburg where, as a member of Gordon's Brigade, Jubal Early's Division, Richard Ewell's III Corps, he was deployed on the Confederate left flank to the north and east of the city when Early's division attacked through the eastern outskirts of the city southward to Cemetery Hill.
On Feb. 6, 1865, Philip was wounded in the right leg and suffered a permanent disability in Hatcher's Run, Va. He was captured near Petersburg, Va., a month later and wasn't released until June 22, several months after Lee surrendered at Appomattox. According to a record in the Georgia State Archives, Philip had dark complexion, brown hair, hazel eyes and was 5 feet 9-3/4 inches tall.
Another brother, Fortunatus Webb, joined the Confederate Army in April 1862 and was attached to Hilliard's Legion of Alabama. In 1863, the legion was consolidated and attached to Grove's Brigade of the 60th Alabama Battalion. It also served mainly in Virginia. According to a pension application that Fortunatus filed in 1906, sometime before April 1865 he suffered an injury in which "my ankle was knocked out of joint and am disabled." Much of 1864 was spent in and around Petersburg, Va., so the injury is likely to have taken place there.
James Moultrie, husband of Americus' sister Victoria, also was a veteran, serving in Company E, 20th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia. He was discharged on Oct. 17, 1861, roughly four months after enlisting, suffering from an unnamed disability.
Even if his brothers hadn't been in the war, the war would have touched Americus. By the mid-1860s, Walton and several of his children had moved back into Georgia and settled in Harris County, located hard by the Alabama border. No major battles were fought in the area, but following Sherman's March to the Sea, some of his troops circled back through the state and went up the Chattahoochee River, raiding and burning. In addition, on April 16, 1865--two days after Lincoln was assassinated--a Union cavalry force captured West Point and Columbus, Ga., just south of Harris County.
According to Americus' daughter Gertrelle, the eldest brother of Americus--Jeptha Webb--was living in Harris County and had racing horses. "The Yankees came by and stole all their horses," she wrote. "They had been offered $3,000.00 for the horses they stole and this wiped them [out]." What she doesn't note was that Jeptha, a lifelong bachelor, is listed in the census as living with Walton--and Americus--in both 1860 and 1870. Thus, it's likely that when the Yankees attacked (if they attacked) they came to where Americus was living.
Americus Stephens Webb was a child of the Civil War and, arguably, one of its last victims.
The 15th child of Walton Polk and Susannah Deadwyler Webb, he was at an impressionable age when Union soldiers, tailing back from Sherman's March to the Sea, ransacked his homeland. Decades later, his modest success--in part by marrying well -- led his brothers to join him in a small town northeast of Atlanta. And when he learned he had fallen ill with what appeared to be a debilitating illness, family legend has it that he chose to kill himself rather than end up as crippled as the Confederate veterans in his family.
Americus Stephens Webb was born Jan. 21, 1856, to a family on the move. Like many before them, Walton and Susannah had decided to leave the Elbert County farmland where they had been born and raised, had married and had produced 14 children. It's not certain whether they had hit the road by Americus' birthday, but given the rough highways of the day, one would think that Susannah wouldn't have wanted to ride a wagon while heavy with child.
No records that I've seen indicate how Americus got his name. Perhaps it was a political statement at a time when emotions over slavery and states' rights were white-hot. (Walton didn't own slaves then, but then again most Southerners didn't, and the two parts of Georgia where he lived tended to have fewer slaves than other regions of the state.) The middle name, Stephens, could have come in honor of Alexander Hamilton "Little Alec" Stephens, a noted Georgia politicians. It could have been a political statement as well--Stephens opposed secession but nevertheless became vice president of the Confederacy.
In any case, by the time Americus was four years old he was living with his family in Beula, Ala., just across the border from Georgia. Four doors away in one direction was Walton's brother, John B. Webb Jr., a carpenter. Four doors in the other direction took him to Americus' elder brother, Fortunatus Webb, who was becoming a cabinet maker.
Battle Tested, Battle Weary
At least two of Americus' brothers and one brother-in-law fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. None emerged intact.
Brother Philip Elcain (also known as Elkana) Webb was a member of the "Mountain Tigers"-- the 31st Regiment of the Georgia Volunteer Infantry. According to a descendant named Earnest Deadwyler (yes, more evidence of Webbs and Deadwylers intermarrying, this time in Harris County), Philip joined in November 1861 and fought with the Army of Northern Virginia. His wartime experiences included participation at Gettysburg where, as a member of Gordon's Brigade, Jubal Early's Division, Richard Ewell's III Corps, he was deployed on the Confederate left flank to the north and east of the city when Early's division attacked through the eastern outskirts of the city southward to Cemetery Hill.
On Feb. 6, 1865, Philip was wounded in the right leg and suffered a permanent disability in Hatcher's Run, Va. He was captured near Petersburg, Va., a month later and wasn't released until June 22, several months after Lee surrendered at Appomattox. According to a record in the Georgia State Archives, Philip had dark complexion, brown hair, hazel eyes and was 5 feet 9-3/4 inches tall.
Another brother, Fortunatus Webb, joined the Confederate Army in April 1862 and was attached to Hilliard's Legion of Alabama. In 1863, the legion was consolidated and attached to Grove's Brigade of the 60th Alabama Battalion. It also served mainly in Virginia. According to a pension application that Fortunatus filed in 1906, sometime before April 1865 he suffered an injury in which "my ankle was knocked out of joint and am disabled." Much of 1864 was spent in and around Petersburg, Va., so the injury is likely to have taken place there.
James Moultrie, husband of Americus' sister Victoria, also was a veteran, serving in Company E, 20th Regiment, Georgia Volunteer Infantry of the Army of Northern Virginia. He was discharged on Oct. 17, 1861, roughly four months after enlisting, suffering from an unnamed disability.
Even if his brothers hadn't been in the war, the war would have touched Americus. By the mid-1860s, Walton and several of his children had moved back into Georgia and settled in Harris County, located hard by the Alabama border. No major battles were fought in the area, but following Sherman's March to the Sea, some of his troops circled back through the state and went up the Chattahoochee River, raiding and burning. In addition, on April 16, 1865--two days after Lincoln was assassinated--a Union cavalry force captured West Point and Columbus, Ga., just south of Harris County.
According to Americus' daughter Gertrelle, the eldest brother of Americus--Jeptha Webb--was living in Harris County and had racing horses. "The Yankees came by and stole all their horses," she wrote. "They had been offered $3,000.00 for the horses they stole and this wiped them [out]." What she doesn't note was that Jeptha, a lifelong bachelor, is listed in the census as living with Walton--and Americus--in both 1860 and 1870. Thus, it's likely that when the Yankees attacked (if they attacked) they came to where Americus was living.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Moving West (Georgia and Alabama, 1850-1880)
By 1850, Elbert County, Ga., had nearly 13,000 citizens split roughly 50-50 between free whites and black slaves. In general, the Webbs did not appear to be big slaveholders. For example, the 1830 census for Walton Polk Webb's residence lists one female slave, aged 10-24, but none were identified in the 1840 or 1850 censuses. It's possible that the family's rapidly growing size made slaveowning unnecessary, as there were plenty of children of both sexes to do chores. Elbert County families also had a tendency to own fewer slaves, and were less likely to have a slave to begin with, than did whites in other parts of the South, particularly those whites who farmed areas that required large numbers of laborers.
By the late 1840s, one would think that Walton and Susannah could be safely described as settled down. After all, in 1848 Walton purchased 216-1/4 acres of land on Falling Creek from a Valentine H. Deadwyler. And by the 1850 census, he and Susannah had 12 children in the house, from 22-year-old Jane to 3-year-old Victoria. But in the mid-1850s, something happened that caused Walton and Susannah to leave town.
On Feb. 18, 1855, this appears in the minutes for Dove's Creek Baptist Church: "Cald conference. Application made for letters of dismission from Bro. W.P. Webb and sister Susan T. Webb and Jane M. Webb, all of which was granted." That same year, the land that Walton had purchased in 1848 was sold to Ira Christian.
Why would a man and wife pull up stakes when they are in their mid-40s? The more cold-blooded in the genealogy game might suggest a scandal of some sort. Certainly, given that daughter Jane was in her early 20s and mother Susannah in her mid-40s when Americus was born, it's possible that Jane was the real mother and that the family was leaving town to avoid gossips. On the other hand, a variety of records taken down 50 and even 75 years ago don't vary in suggesting that Walton and Susannah were Americus' parents. In addition, family history experts say a lot more women in their 40s had children in those days than we might expect.
And there's another reason: lots of other people were leaving Elbert County aside from the Webbs. Land grants in newly opened central Georgia counties that were given to Revolutionary War soldiers had long served to limit Elbert County's population to modest levels. Then, between 1850 and 1860, the county's population dropped about 19%. Perhaps by then the topsoil had been drained of nutrition by tobacco. And the ground wasn't really all that fertile anyway; Elbert County eventually became known as the Granite Capital of the World.
New Country
Walton was likely to have been inspired by stories from his relatives regarding what they were finding even further out West than central Georgia. In 1826, a treaty with 13 Creek Indian chiefs ceded all lands east of the Chattahoochee River (which forms part of the Georgia-Alabama border) to the United States. In April 1839, Rock Springs Baptist Church was founded in Chambers County, Ala., near the Georgia border. One of its 12 charter members was Abner Webb of Elbert County, a cousin of Walton. In addition, the 1850 census for Harris County, Ga., pretty much across the line from Chambers County, Ala., shows Walton's brother John B. Webb Jr. as a resident.
In 1860, Walton and family were listed in the decennial census as living in Chambers County, Ala. This is the first census in which Americus Stephens appears. Considering that he was born in January 1856 and his birthplace is listed as Georgia, it's probable that he was born in Elbert County before the family went west.
They didn't stay too long, however. Walton's granddaughter Gertrelle Webb Crews said in her various records that the family owned a farm in Harris County that was touched by the Civil War. This suggests a move back into Georgia in the early 1860s. By the 1870 census, Walton was listed as living in Harris County on real estate worth $4,500 and with property worth $675. He was 61 and Susannah was 60. Only four children remained at home, but son Fortunatus was next door, sons Joseph and Alexander were two doors down, and son Philip Elcain (identified then as Elkana) was three doors away.
Age no doubt was beginning to take its toll on Walton. On March 9, 1878, W.P. Webb sold 100 acres of land to P.E. Webb for $500. (P.E. is probably Philip Elcain Webb, his son.) The land is described as "lying east of the said lot that Grew S. Duke's grist mill is on and south side of said lot the Mulberry Creek running through the same there being one hundred acres of it." According to Philip's direct descendant, Earnest Deadwyler, this is probably part of a 334-acre spread in the area that came to be known as Benshoe. Philip Elcain held the land until his death in 1914. If there ever was a Webb family farm that a Webb acquired rather than inherited or took in by marriage, this was it.
After selling his land, Walton and Susannah (along with Jeptha, a lifelong bachelor) moved in with Walton and Susannah's daughter Victoria and new husband James Moultrie into a house in the Blue Springs District of Harris County. Blue Springs is believed to be one of the areas that later formed Callaway Gardens, a 14,000-acre resort. At 72, Walton quite likely was the oldest Webb in the entire state, and Susannah at 71 years old vied for No. 2.
We don't know when and where Walton and Susanah died or where they are buried. One guess is in a county north of Harris, because Victoria and James Moultrie eventually moved there. The 1890 census is no help because it was destroyed by fire. It does appear clear, however, that given their long lives and ability to survive war, disease and tough farming conditions--and produce 15 children along the way--Walton and Susannah Webb are marvels to contemplate.
By the late 1840s, one would think that Walton and Susannah could be safely described as settled down. After all, in 1848 Walton purchased 216-1/4 acres of land on Falling Creek from a Valentine H. Deadwyler. And by the 1850 census, he and Susannah had 12 children in the house, from 22-year-old Jane to 3-year-old Victoria. But in the mid-1850s, something happened that caused Walton and Susannah to leave town.
On Feb. 18, 1855, this appears in the minutes for Dove's Creek Baptist Church: "Cald conference. Application made for letters of dismission from Bro. W.P. Webb and sister Susan T. Webb and Jane M. Webb, all of which was granted." That same year, the land that Walton had purchased in 1848 was sold to Ira Christian.
Why would a man and wife pull up stakes when they are in their mid-40s? The more cold-blooded in the genealogy game might suggest a scandal of some sort. Certainly, given that daughter Jane was in her early 20s and mother Susannah in her mid-40s when Americus was born, it's possible that Jane was the real mother and that the family was leaving town to avoid gossips. On the other hand, a variety of records taken down 50 and even 75 years ago don't vary in suggesting that Walton and Susannah were Americus' parents. In addition, family history experts say a lot more women in their 40s had children in those days than we might expect.
And there's another reason: lots of other people were leaving Elbert County aside from the Webbs. Land grants in newly opened central Georgia counties that were given to Revolutionary War soldiers had long served to limit Elbert County's population to modest levels. Then, between 1850 and 1860, the county's population dropped about 19%. Perhaps by then the topsoil had been drained of nutrition by tobacco. And the ground wasn't really all that fertile anyway; Elbert County eventually became known as the Granite Capital of the World.
New Country
Walton was likely to have been inspired by stories from his relatives regarding what they were finding even further out West than central Georgia. In 1826, a treaty with 13 Creek Indian chiefs ceded all lands east of the Chattahoochee River (which forms part of the Georgia-Alabama border) to the United States. In April 1839, Rock Springs Baptist Church was founded in Chambers County, Ala., near the Georgia border. One of its 12 charter members was Abner Webb of Elbert County, a cousin of Walton. In addition, the 1850 census for Harris County, Ga., pretty much across the line from Chambers County, Ala., shows Walton's brother John B. Webb Jr. as a resident.
In 1860, Walton and family were listed in the decennial census as living in Chambers County, Ala. This is the first census in which Americus Stephens appears. Considering that he was born in January 1856 and his birthplace is listed as Georgia, it's probable that he was born in Elbert County before the family went west.
They didn't stay too long, however. Walton's granddaughter Gertrelle Webb Crews said in her various records that the family owned a farm in Harris County that was touched by the Civil War. This suggests a move back into Georgia in the early 1860s. By the 1870 census, Walton was listed as living in Harris County on real estate worth $4,500 and with property worth $675. He was 61 and Susannah was 60. Only four children remained at home, but son Fortunatus was next door, sons Joseph and Alexander were two doors down, and son Philip Elcain (identified then as Elkana) was three doors away.
Age no doubt was beginning to take its toll on Walton. On March 9, 1878, W.P. Webb sold 100 acres of land to P.E. Webb for $500. (P.E. is probably Philip Elcain Webb, his son.) The land is described as "lying east of the said lot that Grew S. Duke's grist mill is on and south side of said lot the Mulberry Creek running through the same there being one hundred acres of it." According to Philip's direct descendant, Earnest Deadwyler, this is probably part of a 334-acre spread in the area that came to be known as Benshoe. Philip Elcain held the land until his death in 1914. If there ever was a Webb family farm that a Webb acquired rather than inherited or took in by marriage, this was it.
After selling his land, Walton and Susannah (along with Jeptha, a lifelong bachelor) moved in with Walton and Susannah's daughter Victoria and new husband James Moultrie into a house in the Blue Springs District of Harris County. Blue Springs is believed to be one of the areas that later formed Callaway Gardens, a 14,000-acre resort. At 72, Walton quite likely was the oldest Webb in the entire state, and Susannah at 71 years old vied for No. 2.
We don't know when and where Walton and Susanah died or where they are buried. One guess is in a county north of Harris, because Victoria and James Moultrie eventually moved there. The 1890 census is no help because it was destroyed by fire. It does appear clear, however, that given their long lives and ability to survive war, disease and tough farming conditions--and produce 15 children along the way--Walton and Susannah Webb are marvels to contemplate.
Shall We Gather by the River (Georgia, 1780-1850)
Settling in Georgia
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:
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
Early Days in America (Virginia, pre-1780)
Webbs have lived in America since at least the 1660s. This isn't surprising, given that Webb is a common name in England and that their West Country and Suffolk homelands provided plenty of early emigrants to the New World. As would be expected, these Webbs tended to go to the two main English colonies: Virginia and Massachusetts. There are references to Webbs in Massachusetts as early as the 1620s, and one distant relative of ours has speculated that we're descended from a Webb born in the Virginia colony in the 1620s--less than a generation after the Jamestown colony arrived in 1607. One early arrival to Virginia colony was a William Webb, who in 1668 obtained 400 acres in Westmoreland County and who during the subsequent decades sold land to George Washington's grandfather.
The first Webb of whom we're reasonably certain to have descended from is John Webb. According to a man in Georgia named Jack Webb who has spent the most time searching our part of the family tree, John was born between 1705 and 1715 in Virginia. He married a Peggy Claiborne around 1730 in Albemarle County, which today is limited to the area around Charlottesville but in those days took in pretty much everything west of Richmond. They had two children named Lucy and Susannah "Sukey" Webb, at which time Peggy died sometime before 1735.
Around the 1750s, John got married again, this time to Peggy's sister Lucy Claiborne. They produced eight children, among them John Burrell Webb, who was born April 24, 1761, in Albemarle County, Va. He is most likely our ancestor.
The first Webb of whom we're reasonably certain to have descended from is John Webb. According to a man in Georgia named Jack Webb who has spent the most time searching our part of the family tree, John was born between 1705 and 1715 in Virginia. He married a Peggy Claiborne around 1730 in Albemarle County, which today is limited to the area around Charlottesville but in those days took in pretty much everything west of Richmond. They had two children named Lucy and Susannah "Sukey" Webb, at which time Peggy died sometime before 1735.
Around the 1750s, John got married again, this time to Peggy's sister Lucy Claiborne. They produced eight children, among them John Burrell Webb, who was born April 24, 1761, in Albemarle County, Va. He is most likely our ancestor.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
The Webb Name
(From "The Webb Family: The Story So Far" by Craig Webb, published in November 2001)
The Webb lineage begins in England. Like many names, ours refers to an occupation--weaving. The same is true for folks named Webbe, Webber, Webster, and Weaver; all identify families engaged in the weaving of cloth. This occupation was particularly popular in Southern England, where the Webb name is said to have arisen. It's likely that the use of the name started to become popular around the same period in the 14th and 15th centuries in which English families--recovering from the plague of the 1350s that had decimated the labor force--began the less labor-intensive practice of raising sheep. The oldest reference to a Webb that I have seen is a man from the 1350s.
According to various sources, the Webb name was the most popular of the Webb/Webbe/Webber/Weaver variants in the English shires of Somerset and Wiltshire (southwest of London), and in Suffolk and Hertfordshire (northeast of London).
By the late 16th century, weaving was more important than farming in England, and no doubt some Webbs were prospering. One of them, John Alexander Webb, was knighted, and his child Sir Henry Webb (born 1510) received the family crest that most often is tied to the Webb name. In addition, both of William Shakespeare's grandmothers were Webbs (they also were sisters, one researcher says).
Since then, the Webb name has become the 137th most common surname in the United States, according to on study of the 2000 U.S. census (source), with roughly 163,000 people in the country bearing that last name. As a result, there are lots of Webbs with whom it's nice to claim kinship, even if none can be proven--at least so far. There's Matthew Webb, the first man to swim across the English Channel; actors Jack Webb and Clifton Webb; golf pro Karrie Webb; and Alan Webb, the fastest high school miler in history. A Webb in recent years was a member of England's national soccer team, while Walter Prescott Webb wrote one of the most famous histories of the Texas Rangers. Still to be established is a Webb in the family history of former President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The Webb lineage begins in England. Like many names, ours refers to an occupation--weaving. The same is true for folks named Webbe, Webber, Webster, and Weaver; all identify families engaged in the weaving of cloth. This occupation was particularly popular in Southern England, where the Webb name is said to have arisen. It's likely that the use of the name started to become popular around the same period in the 14th and 15th centuries in which English families--recovering from the plague of the 1350s that had decimated the labor force--began the less labor-intensive practice of raising sheep. The oldest reference to a Webb that I have seen is a man from the 1350s.
According to various sources, the Webb name was the most popular of the Webb/Webbe/Webber/Weaver variants in the English shires of Somerset and Wiltshire (southwest of London), and in Suffolk and Hertfordshire (northeast of London).
By the late 16th century, weaving was more important than farming in England, and no doubt some Webbs were prospering. One of them, John Alexander Webb, was knighted, and his child Sir Henry Webb (born 1510) received the family crest that most often is tied to the Webb name. In addition, both of William Shakespeare's grandmothers were Webbs (they also were sisters, one researcher says).
Since then, the Webb name has become the 137th most common surname in the United States, according to on study of the 2000 U.S. census (source), with roughly 163,000 people in the country bearing that last name. As a result, there are lots of Webbs with whom it's nice to claim kinship, even if none can be proven--at least so far. There's Matthew Webb, the first man to swim across the English Channel; actors Jack Webb and Clifton Webb; golf pro Karrie Webb; and Alan Webb, the fastest high school miler in history. A Webb in recent years was a member of England's national soccer team, while Walter Prescott Webb wrote one of the most famous histories of the Texas Rangers. Still to be established is a Webb in the family history of former President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
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