Baldwin County GaArchives History .....History of Baldwin County - Cobb Biography 1925
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 7, 2004, 1:10 am

p. 297-300

THE COBB FAMILY By James Calloway

    The Lookout, published by Miss Zella Arhstrong of Chattanooga, gives in its
issue of March 10, a full genealogical account of the Cobb family of Georgia.
This is a short extract:

    The Cobbs and Lewises are of Welsh extraction, and of an ancient house. Some
of their given names are yet lettered upon crumbling headstones in the country
Church yards in Wales.

    The Colonial records show that the Cobbs were passengers on the earliest
boats that came to the new west, after the settlement of Jamestown. The name was
at first pluralized into Cobbs, and Joseph Cobbs kindled the fires of his
wilderness settlement on the banks of the James as early as 1611, and the
settlement was called Cobbham. In time, most of the Cobbs left the tide-water
region, and settled over the rich Virginia lands.

    But sometime prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, there drifted
southward, two brothers, Thomas and John Cobbs, into Georgia, Thomas coming in
advance of John.

    Thomas Cobbs, who settled in what was Columbia county, appears, from the
records, to have been the most ancient patriarch who has ever lived on Georgia
soil, reaching the prenominal age of one hundred and eleven years. He was born
in Virginia and died in Georgia, in 1835. He was eight years George Washington's
senior, but drew his sword and marched to meet the British, and survived not
less than ten presidential inaugurations. He won the title of Col. Thomas Cobbs.

    This old patriarch was the grand-father of Thomas Willis Cobb, who
represented Georgia in the United States Senate, and also presided over one of
the Circuit Courts. Cobb county was named for Thomas Willis Cobb. Senator Cobb
was guardian of Robert Toombs, and influenced the future Mireabeau towards the law.

    Col. Thomas Cobbs had an only daughter, Sarah, who married John Benning, of
Columbia county. One of their children, Pleasant M. Benning, became the father
of Gen. Henry L. Benning, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, and
Brigadier-General in the Confederate army, winning the sobriquet of "Old Rock,"
by his gallantry on the field of battle. General Benning was the father of Mrs.
Samuel Spencer, whose husband was the late President of the Southern Railway.

    The Cobbs first met the Lamars at the marriage altar, when Sarah Cobb
Benning became the wife of Col. Peter Lamar, of Lincoln county. When McDuffie
county was separated from Columbia, the old homestead "Cobbham" became one of
the landmarks of McDuffie.

    Col. John Cobbs, youngest brother of Thomas Cobbs, "Old Grandaddy Cobbs,"
settled in middle Georgia, in what was then Washington county. He married
Mildred, daughter of Howell Lewis, of Granville, N. C. This John become the
father of Henry Lewis Cobb and John Addison Cobb, who appear to have been born
in North Carolina.

    Howell Lewis Cobb seems to have been an exceptionally strong man, and
represented Georgia in the halls of Congress. When he came to Georgia is not
known, but John Addison Cobb came early and settled in Jefferson county. John
Addison Cobb married Sarah Rootes, daughter of Thomas Reade Rootes, of
Fredericksburg, Virginia, and from this union came Howell Cobb and Thomas R. R.
Cobb, two of the most illustrious sons of Georgia. Howell become the Speaker of
the National house of Congress, Governor of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury
in Buchanan's Cabinet, President of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate
States, and Major General in the Confederate army.

    Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb was not less distinguished, he stood at the head of
the Georgia Bar, and was a most brilliant orator. He entered politics for the
first time, advocating secession. He organized Cobb's Legion and was killed at
the battle of Fredericksburg, in 1862, almost in sight of his mother's
birth-place. He married Marion, daughter of Chief Justice Lumpkin.

    Besides Howell and Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, the other children of John
Addison Cobb were; Maj. John B. Cobb; Laura, wife of Prof. William Rutherford;
Mildred, wife of Col. Luther J. Glenn; Mary, who first married an Erwin, and
afterwards Dr. J. M. Johnson; and Martha, wife of Maj. John C. Whitner. Mrs. M.
A. Lipscomb and Miss Millie Rutherford, the brilliant Georgia educators and
former Principals of the Lucy Cobb Institute, are grand-daughters of Joseph
Addison Cobb and neices of Gen. Howell and Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb. Miss
Rutherford is widely known throughout the South as a brilliant historian.



Additional Comments:
From: 

Part V

HISTORY of BALDWIN COUNTY GEORGIA
BY MRS. ANNA MARIA GREEN COOK

ILLUSTRATED
ANDERSON. S. C.
Keys-Hearn Printing Co.
-1925—

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