CobbBW

Thanks to Barbara Cobb Rowe, we have the information we need to update the linage as of this date-January 2008.

SEARCHING FOR THE PARENTS OF ALEXANDER COBB.
Need source information as to his parents and his spouse. One group does not
know the parents of Alexander and another group says that he is the son of
William Cobb and his second wife. Alexander is supposed to be born in 1772
in South Carolina and died 1856 in Randolph, Alabama. Some information
indicates that he married Elizabeth Ruth Banks in 1803 in SC.
As Sauders is sometime used in the place of Alexander, it is thought that he
may have changed his name and remarried. Elizabeth Ruth Banks had a child
named Rutha Banks Cobb. Rutha Banks Cobb married John Thames and had
20 children of which 17 lived till adulthood. We have copies of John Thames
and Rutha Banks Cobb marriage license and marriage.

Alexander Cobb

This book is dedicated with love, to my Father, Henry David Cobb and his siblings, the great great grandchildren of Alexander Cobb and Ruth Banks Cobb.

To fellow researchers, this book contains information that has been made available through Internet access to census, marriage, and cemetery records that has allowed us to follow our Cobb family in a way that was not possible prior to this time; and through information shared by other researchers. It contains corrections to things that earlier researchers thought was fact because of stories passed down through the family. I have strived to be as thorough as possible but please remember to do you own verification. In the future there may be researchers that find even more truths about our family. I am sure that there are family Bibles and records that we have yet to access, and hopefully will someday come to light. I am very open to corrections if you can provide them, along with sources for your facts. Sharing information helps us all to learn more about our ancestors. At the end of some chapters, you will find some unproven theories that I have followed and have not proved or disproved. They are threads that have been followed but not to any conclusion, and that you may want to explore, with perhaps better luck than I had.

Barbara Cobb Rowe

967 Woody Farm Road

Hot Springs, NC 28743

[email protected]

December 2004

Chapter 1

Our Alexander

All my early years I heard family stories regarding our “lineage” from a paternal grandmother to whom I was particularly close, and I have always loved family lore. My “Gran’s” love of family and history were combined and passed along to most of her children, and some of her grandchildren. In my youth I believed the stories whole-heartedly, as I had not yet considered that these stories were handed down by people that may not have heard the whole story, or even remembered it correctly, or perhaps that the person that told it to them had embellished parts, or not heard or remembered correctly either.

Most of us do not come by an appreciation of family stories until later in our lives when we are no longer busy with earning a living, or raising our own children. The major problem with that is that often there are no longer family elders to help us with learning the stories the exact way it was taught to them. Thereby enters the stage of trying to remember what we heard when we were younger so that we can then pass it along to younger folks who are usually too occupied to hear and remember it all. This is not always the case, of course, and the good part is that the stories usually contain some truths and give us a place to start our research.

After many tellings, down through many generations, it turns out that we may have laid claim to a line that was not ours. It has been believed, for many years, that there were five main Cobb lines. It has only been recently discovered that that is not the case.

Through the generosity of a warm and caring lady, Christine Belle Fleming Stricklin (Aug 22, 1909-Aug 29, 2004), a Cobb family DNA project was begun in 2003. Mrs. Stricklin funded the project that has provided all Cobb Family researchers with a gift of knowledge we would not have had without her. Because of her, many Cobbs were able to participate that could not have afforded the tests on their own. According to her son, Robert, director of the project, “she was born in the south (Mean, Polk Co AR) in another time. She taught the deaf for 42 years - a long story for a little girl from Mean. (She met Helen Keller twice, and Helen Keller remembered her the second time - fun tidbit.)” It was an especially giving thing for her to back this project, as the Cobbs are her husband’s line. Robert adds that his mother funded the project in memory of her husband Curtis Stricklin and his mother Frances Cordelia Cobb Stricklin (June 5, 1874 Chattahoochee Co GA - Nov 5, 1960 Durant, Bryan Co OK).There are not many would be that unselfish.

There have been almost 90 participants to date, the qualifications being that you are male with the surname of Cobb. This project has given us at least 16 Cobb lines. It has also given us the answer to a long debated question regarding Alexander Cobb.

There used to be two camps of researchers, one group believing that Sanders and Alexander Cobb were two different people, and one group sure that they were one and the same person. The main connection until the DNA project was that both Sanders, also spelled Saunders, and Alexander, neither who could sign their name, made their “mark” in the same unusual way. The mark was an X with a dot on each of the inside four angles.

The DNA project gave us an exact match with Jeremiah Cobb’s line. That along with a South Carolina deed of mortgage written and signed in July 1792 by Simon Gentry to his step-sons Sanders and Jeremiah Cobb; and a South Carolina deed of sale/transfer for the same 147 acres in 1805 with Sanders Cobb selling, and Rebecca Gentry relinquishing dower rights, gave us written evidence of part of Alexander’s family.

Family lore says that Alexander was the son of a William Cobb and an Indian maiden. Somehow, through the years, that became William Cobb of Rocky Mount, Tennessee and his second wife, Sally. At this writing, no descendant of this William has participated in the DNA project so we cannot say that we are not related to him, but there is very little chance of that he is Alexander’s and Jeremiah’s father. Since we know that Alexander’s and Jeremiah’s mother’s name was Rebecca (MNU), the most that William could be would be grandparent, or possibly an uncle. Another mistake often seen was the assumption that William’s Sally was the Sarah Stancil who married a different William Cobb.

When I first started this book, we had no idea which Cobb line was ours, but in 2006 we had another wonderful breakthrough. We matched, 96.2%, a male Cobb from the line of Benjamin Cobb, father of William of Rocky Mount. With this knowledge, we know we are descended from Joseph Cobb of Isle of Wight. We are just not sure how. We are still looking for a proven descendant of William to be tested so that perhaps we can come closer to the truth. At this point, I believe that perhaps William of Rocky Mount had a son, Alexander (the one that witnessed a NC land sale in 1772, see chapter 3), and that may be our connection, but that is just conjecture, perhaps someday it will be proven, or disproved.

After those two Edgefield South Carolina land records, the next time we have a record of Sanders Cobb is on the Abbeville South Carolina 1810 census record The household contains Alexander, his wife Ruth and four daughters under the age of ten. No record has been found of the marriage of Sanders and Ruth Banks, but their first daughter was born in 1803 so we think they married about 1801 or 1802. There is no sign of Sanders on the 1800 census as head of a household. His brother, Jeremiah Cobb and wife, Elizabeth Corley and their first son are on the 1800 Edgefield County, SC census and a listing we believed to be for their mother Rebecca.

There are some War of 1812 service records for Saunders/Sanders Cobb in 1813 and 1814 showing that Alexander was a member of Youngblood’s Regiment in South Carolina. There were also records for Isaac, Allen, Daniel and Lewis Gentry, Alexander’s step and half brothers.

About 1818 all these Gentry gentlemen, along with Sanders and Rebecca, migrated with their families to the Cahawba area of Alabama that was to become Bibb County, Alabama on Dec. 4, 1820. Jeremiah was the only known child of Rebecca Cobb Gentry to stay in South Carolina.

The 1820 Federal Census for most of Alabama is lost along with many other census records so we cannot prove Alexander was there by then. We are going with the appearance of his stepbrothers in the guardianship court records of 1818; and the fact that one of Alexander’s sons, Charles Banks Cobb says he was born in SC in 1817 and the next child, Levi Banks Cobb says he was born in Alabama in 1819.

We do find Alexander on the 1830, 1840 and 1850 Bibb County, Alabama records. There are also court records for him in Bibb County for those years. He was recorded in South Carolina records as Sanders or Saunders, but with the move to Alabama he is recorded under the name Alex or Alexander. Sanders has been a nickname for Alexander since ancient Grecian times. Also want to note that some researchers have added a middle name “Grancer” but I have not found the source of that name so I do not use it. On the 1850 census record dated in December he states that he was 78 and born in SC, making his birth year about 1772. His estate records were represented for probate on November 7, 1856 but we have no exact date for his death.

No marked grave has been found for either Ruth or Alexander, however there is a good possibility that they are both buried on land once owned by Alexander. In a book entitled “Baptist’s of Bibb” on page 496, McCord lists a cemetery he calls the Reid/Cobb Cemetery, surveyed last in 1983. During McCord’s earlier survey, he found four unmarked graves along with two marked graves, one “inaccessible, because of growth and the only one left marked at this time. It is for James Reid (1795/5/9 – 1853/10/6), who was Alexander next door neighbor according to the 1830, 1840 and 1850 Alabama census. That means there are five graves besides Reid’s and they could possibly be for Alex, Ruth, Rebecca, Priscilla and Elizabeth Cobb. They would not be for James Reid’s family because after his death, his widow and children migrated west.

My father and I spoke to an elderly lady that owned the land. She told us that the field was called Cobb’s Corner by the older locals, because it had once been owned by Alexander Cobb. That story was repeated by another older lady who had been the historian for the Mulberry Baptist Church. She said she thought she remembered that Alexander had been buried there near James Reid and did not remember when his headstone disappeared. Neither of those ladies is alive today, which just shows how fast we are losing our historical resources. And the plows get a little closer to covering the whole area over each year.

In April of 2007, while speaking to a cousin and descendant of Alexander, who still lives in Jemison, my father and I learned that it is the common knowledge of the folks in the area that Alexander is buried next to James Reid and that Ruth lies on the other side of Alex. There was a headstone for Alex that disappeared in the late 1970s or early 1980s. They say that the two daughters that predeceased Alex (Priscilla and Elizabeth) are buried there, as is Vina Parminter, mother of Alex's last daughter, Rebecca.

Chapter 2

Ruth Banks Cobb

Alexander and Ruth were thought to have married in early 1800s and Ruth Banks was supposed to be a good bit younger than Alex. There is a family story regarding their marriage told by their granddaughter, Mary Cobb McNeill. This was dictated to her daughter, Elizabeth. As with most family stories, it contains some truths and some inaccuracies. The original copy of this document is owned by Nancy J. Cobb Sternlicht, the great granddaughter of James Cobb. More of the document is in the chapter on James J. Cobb.

The Meeting and Marriage of
Alexander Cobb and Elizabeth Ruth Banks

This information is from Elizabeth McNeill, daughter of Mary Ann Cobb McNeill (daughter of James A. & Elizabeth Malone Campbell Cobb). It is a written account of the meeting marriage of Alexander Cobb and Elizabeth Ruth Banks:

"Alexander Cobb came from Georgia and settled near Isabella Church, Alabama. He built a plantation on Autauga Creek. He was half Indian, but didn't acknowledge the fact. He was a bachelor who fell in love with Ruth Banks. She was only fourteen and he was about thirty. Her people objected to him on account of his age, so they locked her up and took her clothes away at night. Ruth told Alexander that if she could ever slip out, she would. So one night when there was a big snow on the ground, she crawled out of the window and walked about two miles to his home barefooted with a quilt wrapped around her.

It was about nine o'clock when she came to the door. Alexander was sitting up making baskets. A man and his wife lived in the house with Alexander, so he put the man on a horse and told him to go for license and preacher. The woman put Ruth to bed and worked with her as she was almost frozen. Just at daybreak the preacher arrived and married them. Shortly afterward the father, Mr. Banks, his wife and Ruth's brother rode up to the gate. They had tracked her by the bloody tracks in the snow. They were too late because Ruth and Alexander had been married about ten minutes before the family arrived. Alexander and Ruth had nine children: Ruth, Barthena, Telitha, Mary, John, William, James, Persilla and Charles Cobb."

Ruth was once thought to be the daughter of Charles Banks and Mary Gibson Banks and that her name might have been Elizabeth Ruth Banks, and many researchers accepted that and assigned Elizabeth’s birth date and name to our Ruth. There is a family Bible for the William Banks family in Coweta County, Georgia that shows they may have better claim to Charles’ and Mary’s daughter. So far there is no clear evidence as to which of the Banks men may have sired Ruth. Our Ruth would have been about the age and certainly the name Elizabeth was well used for Alexander’s and Ruth’s daughters and granddaughters. Another result of too many with the same name in the same era, and assumptions being made.

According to the 1810 census they had four daughters and because of headstones we have birthdates for the first three, Rutha Banks Cobb, Elizabeth Bethany Cobb, and Telitha Cobb. Because of marriages dates I am fairly certain that the fourth daughter was Poscilla/Priscilla Cobb. Their first son, John S., was born in 1810 or 1811, followed by Mary B., than William Pinckney, James Jackson, Charles Banks, Levi Banks and the last child, Elizabeth A. Cobb, probably born about 1821. The last two children were born in Alabama.

Ruth died between the birth of Elizabeth A. and Alexander’s second marriage on Dec. 21, 1826. We have no records to indicate the exact date of death or where she is buried.

Alexander married Miriam Campbell, a destitute widow with one son, John C. Campbell, in Dec. 1826. The court records for their divorce in October 1831 state that Alex married her to have someone to care for his children and that she abused them while he was away from home, traveling on business.

Alexander next appears on court records in August 1844 when his children try to have him declared mentally incompetent. They base this claim on the fact that Alex had given one of his slaves, as a gift, to a widow, Lavina Parminter. In that period, slaves were worth a good deal of money, and the children felt that their father had no business giving gifts of such value. Alex won the case being declared to have all his faculties.

In September of 1850, Alexander petitioned the court to adopt Rebecca Underwood Parminter, daughter of the deceased Vina Parminter, and was granted the adoption. Some researchers have stated that Alexander had married Vina, but the court records listed her under the Parminter name so that would suggest that no marriage ever occurred between them. Again there are two camps of researchers, one that feels that Alexander was adopting an out of wedlock biological daughter, and one that feels he was just taking in a child he knew that had no relatives left. On later census records Rebecca stated her father was born in SC and her mother in AL. That is not real proof, as there was a John Parminta from SC, who died in Shelby County in August of 1849, who could have been a father or uncle. It is possible that Vina was what was known as a grass widow, at that time and up into the 1940s that was a woman who was still technically married but no longer lived with her husband.

During this period Alex also appeared in the Bibb County court records, off and on for about a year, suing his next door neighbor, James Reid for five dollars. Alex claimed it was money he had loaned James and never was repaid. James claimed he had repaid the money. Both men probably spent that much, or more, paying for the lawyers and court costs. Alexander’s determination to win over such a small matter, perhaps, shows from where a certain Cobb stubborn streak may have come.

Alexander left a considerable estate and, luckily, the court records reinforce what we knew about the names of his children and the grandchildren that belonged to the two daughters who predeceased him.

Alexander was gone prior to the Civil War and had no knowledge of the devastation it dealt his children. Besides the grandsons lost to battle, the husbands of his two eldest daughters were hung by the home guard that seem to take exception to the fact that the two gentlemen, both about 65, were not out fighting the war. Two of his sons were killed by some of the renegade gangs that abounded at the end of the war, possibly the one called the Blackwell gang. All these murders were in a six month period, right at the end of the war. None of the widows of the four men killed ever remarried.

Here are a few small clues that were noted as I tried to form paper trails for Alex, his children, and grandchildren. Many of Alexander and Ruth’s children had sets of twins, so that tendency seems to run in our Cobb line. Also, almost every one of the 11 children named a daughter Frances, Jane and/or Julia. Plus many in Jeremiah’s line used those same names for daughters, so they may have just been popular names. There were other names used frequently, but I could find an aunt or uncle that they were honoring. I have not found the source for the name Frances, Jane or Julia, but they could have possibly have come from one of the unnamed Gentry daughters that showed up on the early SC census records in Simon’s and Rebecca’s household.

Chapter 3

Rebecca Cobb Gentry

Rebecca MNU Cobb Gentry married first an Unknown Cobb and than Simon Gentry. Gentry researchers feel that the second marriage occurred in late 1791. That may be due to the fact that the 1792 deed of mortgage says he was already living on the property. There is again a split faction on whether Rebecca was the mother of all of Simon’s children, or only of the last two sons, Daniel and Lewis Gentry. If she was the mother of all the children the marriage would have occurred by 1784 before the eldest Gentry son, Isaac was born in 1785. Isaac’s birth was followed by Allen and Elizabeth Gentry and several other daughters. According to the 1790 census records there were several other daughters but at this date their names are unknown.

Simon was dead, or gone, by 1805 when the land he wrote a deed of mortgage to buy from Sanders and Jeremiah was sold by Alexander, and Rebecca signed to relinquish her dower rights. He may have been gone by 1800, since he does not appear on the SC census records. On the Edgefield census there is a Dukey Jentry which is quite likely a misinterpretation of Becky Gentry. That name never appears anywhere else, and the household fits the number that should be the Gentry household minus Simon. By 1810, Rebecca, Sanders, and Allen Gentry show up on the Abbeville SC census. Again, none of those show up on an 1820 census.

Family lore says Rebecca migrated to Alabama with the majority of her children and probably died there. She was supposed to have been born about 1755 if you use the numbers in the age columns for the two census records that we think are hers.

On the subject of Rebecca, Alexander was said to be half Indian or Native American and that would probably have had to come from Rebecca. On the 1790 Sampson County, North Carolina census record there appears a Becky Cobb with two others in the household. They are all three in the” free other than white” column, which usually denoted Indians or half-breeds, sometimes called mulattoes back then. I know that is not area normally associated with Alexander, but please remember that there was a great deal of moving around back then.

No Cobb appeared on the tax lists from that area that were done the few years prior to 1790. But there is an interesting land record from the area. In the Duplin/Sampson County land records, there is a 1772 land purchase of 150 acres by a William Cobb from South Carolina, witnessed by an Alexander Cobb. That being the year that our Alexander was born, it could not have been him. But the William and the Alexander mentioned are not known to be from any other line, and witnesses on land documents were normally relatives of some sort. William later sold 100 of those 150 acres, but I have not pinned down what happened to the last 50 acres. Also there was a William Cobb that served in the Revolution in North Carolina for a short period. He enlisted in 1777 and died Jan. 26, 1778, that would have been the right year to explain no more children with Rebecca (Jeremiah was supposedly born about 1774 or 1775).

Return to the Home Page

SEARCHING FOR THE PARENTS OF ALEXANDER COBB.
Need source information as to his parents and his spouse. One group does not know the parents of Alexander and another group says that he is the son of William Cobb and his second wife. Alexander is supposed to be born in 1772 in South Carolina and died 1856 in Randolph, Alabama. Some information indicates that he married Elizabeth Ruth Banks in 1803 in SC. As Sauders is sometime used in the place of Alexander, it is thought that he may have changed his name and remarried. Elizabeth Ruth Banks had a child named Rutha Banks Cobb. Rutha Banks Cobb married John Thames and had
20 children of which 17 lived until adulthood. We have copies of John Thames and Rutha Banks Cobb marriage license and marriage.