The following paper on Daniel Watkins Webb was written by the DeKalb County Historian, Thomas G. Webb. The contents of these pages are copyright 2000 to Thomas G. Webb. all rights are reserved. The information on these pages are free for private use, but may not be included in any compilation or collection in any media form for either private or commercial use without the author's consent. I am using these papers on this page with Mr. Webbs permission.

Daniel Watkins Webb and Sallie Magness


Daniel Watkins Webb was born May 14, 1815, in Warren County, Tennessee, near the present DeKalb County line. Warren County was not opened to settlement until five or six years after that. However, Warren County was still very much pioneer territory when Wat (Watkins) was born and remained so to a great degree during the time he was growing up. As the oldest son in a family which consisted mostly of girls, much of the farm work fell to Wat. When Wat was nineteen, his father, Julius Webb, died. The only other son was only nine years old, so much of the family responsibility had to be assumed by Wat. A little more than two years after his father died, his mother, Hannah Watkins Webb, remarried. She married Tillman Potter, a widower with eleven children; she had seven of her own, and she and Tillman had two children. Then only three years after their marriage, Tillman Potter also died, and again Wat had much of the responsibility for the family. He was at this time appointed guardian for some of the younger members of the family.

It is not known how much education Daniel Watkins Webb had. Probably not very much was available to him. Although his parents were middle-class landowners, they were not wealthy, and he probably attended schools available in the area where he lived. he was intelligent and capable of carrying on a successful business; he was ambitious and interested in acquiring for his family more than the bare necessities of life.

In 1836, when he was twenty-one years old, he married Sarah Magness (usually called Sallie), who was four years younger than he. She was born September 12, 1819, on Sink Creek in Warren (now DeKalb) County, Tennessee. Sallie was the daughter of Perry Green Magness and his wife Polly Cantrell. Her father was a substantial landowner and a prominent member of Bildad Baptist Church; Sallie was the third of his twelve children. Sallie herself became the mother of thirteen children.

Wat and Sallie Webb made their home in Warren County Near the DeKalb County line in what was then known as Middleton, and is now known as the Moore’s College Community. The house (which was still standing in 1976, though unoccupied) had a long front porch with two doors leading to two large rooms (about 16 by 20 feet), each with a brick fireplace. One of these rooms was the parlor; the other was the parents’ bedroom, which also serves as the everyday sitting room. Behind these rooms were the kitchen, dining room, and the small bedroom. More sleeping room up under the roof was reached by an enclosed winding stair in the corner of the parents’ bedroom. It was a frame house at a time when most were log. There was a creek near the house and a spring which furnished water.

Wat Webb was interested in his children’s education and is said to have been the leader in the building of a school near his home. This was a two-story brick building with a school room on one floor and a meeting hall for the Masonic Lodge on the other.

Daniel Watkins Webb eventually acquired a sizable amount of land, probably five hundred acres or more. He also owned a slave woman, Rhody, and her six children. She would have been used mainly for household help, though her children would have helped in the fields. There was plenty of work for everyone, for the slaves also had to be fed and clothed. With his own large family and a large slave family, there was no end to gardening, cooking, washing, ironing, making clothes, raising chickens, killing hogs, milking, churning, chopping wood, hauling water and a thousand other jobs.

Besides being a farmer, Wat Webb also owned a store near his home, and personally made buying trips to Nashville to stock it. It was probably the profit from this business that enabled him to buy for his family some of the luxuries that their neighbors could not afford. When Samantha, his oldest daughter, was sixteen, he decided to furnish the parlor. and he did furnish it in great style. The furniture was not locally made, but probably came from Kentucky or maybe even from Philadelphia. There was a bed with a high mahogany headboard, a handsome mahogany marble-top dresser, a large mahogany marble-top center table, two sofas, a gold and brown carpet with red roses, and most wondrous of all, a piano.

At the time that piano was bought, there were said to be only two pianos in McMinnville, the county seat of Warren County, and none in Smithville, the seat of adjoining DeKalb County. Who taught the girls to play is not known, but somebody did, for most of the girls could play the piano, and maybe some of the boys; It is known that Bethel could play the violin. Even the son Daniel, whose mental development was arrested by some disease, could pick out “Mammy had a Speckled Hen”.

Life was pleasant for Wat and Sallie during the first twenty-five years of their life. They were both working hard, but they lived comfortably enough. Their children were growing up, the older ones were married and had children of their own, and things were going well. Then came the Civil War with all its difficulties and sadness.

Daniel Watkins Webb may have been a Democrat, but was probably a Whig in politics; in 1860 he named a son Felix K. Zolliecoffer, his sympathies and those of his family lay with the Confederacy. Two of his sons and one or more sons-inlaw joined the Confederate Army; Wat and Sallie also had brothers, nephews, and cousins in the Confederate Army.

Both Confederate and Union armies passed through their neighborhood taking food, crops, and horses. The story is told of how their daughter Mattie once concealed a ham when soldiers were in the home by sitting on a stool and arranging her voluminous skirts over it. These difficulties were insignificant, however, by comparison with other things--their oldest son Perry was killed in 1862 at the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, leaving a widow and two children. Sallie’s brother Richard had his hip shot away in the same battle and lay for weeks at the point of death; many other relatives were killed and wounded.

The end of the war found Wat and Sallie in bad shape, Their slaves were freed, their business at the store was in a shambles, most of their livestock was gone, their Confederate money was worthless, Yet Wat was willing to try again; he still owned his land, and the store business could be built up again. Then tragedy struck.

In the late summer of 1866, their son in law, Crockett Webb, was traveling somewhere on a train. It is said that on the train was the body of a man who had cholera. At any rate, he somehow contracted the cholera germ, and came down with the disease on his return home. His wife Hanna also took it, as did both Wat and Sallie Webb. DR T. C. Smartt attended them, but to little avail. Cholera is a disease which runs its course very rapidly. After infection (which usually comes through contaminated food or water), there is a brief incubation period of 12 to 28 hours. Then abruptly begins a painless, watery diarrhea which may amount to three or four gallons in 24 hours. This is soon followed by vomiting, and the patient rapidly becomes dehydrated; thirst becomes intense, and the blood pressure falls. As more and more water is lost from the body, the person goes into a coma and may die in shock. The disease usually runs it course in two to seven days. Cholera is often accompanied by severe muscular cramps, and this was evidently the case with Wat Webb. It has been said that the only way Wat could get any relief was to be lowered into a tub of hot water. There was little help outside the family; the neighbors were afraid to come in contact with this highly contagious disease. Aunt Rhody, the former slave who was still with the family, took the younger children to the brick schoolhouse and burned tar and took other precautions to prevent infection. Crockett Webb died on September 21, Watkins Webb, died the following day, September 23, 1866. It is said that his body was taken immediately by his sons, Bethel and Julius, and buried that night.

Sallie Slowly recovered from the Cholera. She was forty-seven years old, a widow with eight children at home, the youngest three years old. With the help of her sons, the farm was gradually brought back into production and things began to improve. The grandchildren who visited her in the 1870’s remember her as being quite large by then, but a jolly person who loved he grandchildren and enjoyed their visits. Her children gradually married and moved away, except for her daughter Tennie. Tennie in 1876 had gone to Hartsville to go to school and live wither sister and brother-in-law, Mattie and Jim Nowlin. Returning home the next year, she remained there with her mother even after her marriage to Pope Womack in 1882. Sallie had been a life long Baptist, but was so impressed by Pope Womack’s devotion to the Church of Christ that she joined it in her last years. She had suffered a stroke by then and was a semi-invalid, but she was set in a chair and lowered back into the water for baptism. The last few years of Sallie’s life were spent in a large two story house on the McMinnville road just south of Smithville, where she lived with Tennie and Pope Womack, and where she died as the result of another stroke on January 10, 1890.

Her body was laid in the parlor with coins on her eyes to keep them closed, and the children and grandchildren gathered for the funeral. One Granddaughter, Gertrude Gribble Miller, came by horse and buggy from Woodbury for the occasion. There was no embalming then, and the body had already begun to smell before the funeral services. Sallie was taken to Sink Creek and laid to rest beside the husband who had died twenty four years earlier.

The children of Daniel Watkins Webb and Sarah Magness

Samantha J. Webb was born June 1838 in Warren County, Tennessee and died August 6, 1892. She married Jim Gribble. He was a captain in the Confederate Army, and went to law school after the war. They lived in Woodbury and in Lebanon, where he was a judge and where they owned a very comfortable two story brick house.

Perry Green Webb was born in 1839 in Warren County, Tennessee and died in 1862. He married Mary Jane Young, had two children and was killed in the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky. He owned 150 acres which was sold after the war to pay his debts. Perry’s great-grandson, Joe L. Evins, retired in 1976 after serving 30 years as United States Congressman from Tennessee’s Fourth District.

Mary (Polly) Webb was born 1841 in Warren County, Tennessee and died 1878. She married Byrd Womack. He was a lawyer and practiced in Cookville, where they made their home. Polly died there; Mr. Womack and the children later moved to Weatherford, Texas.

Julius Caesar Webb was born February 3, 1843 in Warren County, Tennessee and died November 7, 1898 in Smithville, Tennessee. He married Katie Traweek of Mississippi, He served in the Confederate Army. He attended Vanderbilt University Medical School and became a doctor. His house was in Smithville beside the homes of his sister Eugenia, his Brother Zollie, and his sister Cartie. He later moved to McComb City, Mississippi. He was back in Smithville visiting when he suddenly died. He was taken back to McComb City, Mississippi for burial.

Hanna Webb was born 1844 in Warren County, Tennessee and died 1866 in Warren County, Tennessee. She married Crockett Webb, her third cousin. They both died of cholera in 1866, leaving two little girls who were brought up by Crockett’s parents.

Bethel Magness Webb was born September 21, 1847 in Warren County, Tennessee and died October 26, 1911. He was the most widely known of the family. He married Helen Ware. he became a lawyer in 1872 and lived for a time at Cookeville and at Woodbury. He then settled in Smithville, where he owned the large hotel known as the Webb house. He was known as an excellent host and was visited regularly by many of his relatives. Like his father, he acquired many of the luxuries for his family and had a well furnished parlor, handsome clothes, etc. He was judge of he Chancery Court and in 1910 was a candidate for the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Martha (Mattie) Webb born 1850 in Warren County, Tennessee and died (time unk) in Salt Lake City, Utah. She married Jim Nowlin of White County, Tennessee. She had a brilliant mind and played the piano well. Her husband taught school. In 1902 they became members of the L. D. S. (Mormon) Church and moved to Salt Lake City. Her descendants still live in that area.

Evan Webb was born February 25, 1852 in Warren County, Tennessee and died 1915 in Warren County, Tennessee. He married Mollie Walling of McMinnville, where they made their home and brought up their three children. They lived in a very comfortable brick home three blocks from the courthouse square.

Daniel Webb was born 1854 and died 1898. He was stricken with some disease, possibly infantile paralysis, when young. His mental development was arrested at about ten years of age and he was a hunch back. After his mother’s death, he lived with his sister Tennie until his death.

Eugenia Webb was born 1857 and died May 1903. She married Eli Evans of Liberty, Tennessee. They made their home in Smithville, where he was a county official and a very prosperous businessman. She was very pretty and played the piano well even after she developed rheumatism in one arm. Only one of her children lived to adulthood; at least four died in infancy.

Tennessee (Tennie) Gertrude Webb was born May 25, 1858 and died October 15, 1920. She married Pope Womack, a carpenter and contractor. They lived in a handsome home just south of Smithville, where she entertained her brothers and sisters regularly. She played the piano and painted, and was noted as a spotless housekeeper and a hostess with a bountiful table. They were members of the Smithville Church of Christ. [NOTE: by Athol K. Foster] Pope and Tennie had three children one girl and two boys. Pearl, Hubern and Lester. Pearl Married George Monroe Foster (My Grandfather).

Felix Zollicoffer Webb was born September 19, 1860 and died September 29, 1924. He married Amanda Smith. He was very quiet, but she always had something funny to say. In 1881 he began operating the drug store in Smithville which is now owned by his grandson and great grandson and is still under the name of “F. Z. Webb and Sons”. He and Amanda lived in a comfortable frame house two blocks from the square in Smithville. It was located beside the homes of his brother Julius and his sisters Eugenia and Cartie. Zollie and Mandy were members of the Smithville Baptist Church.

Cartie Webb was born 1863 and died December 2, 1924. She married Jim Moore. They lived a block from the square in a handsome frame house with lots of Victorian trim on it. He was a judge of the county court and held other county offices. She taught Sunday School at the Smithville Baptist Church. She played the piano and was considered a great hostess, one who would always spread the table with a grand variety of food.


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