The Murder of John Franklin Cobb (1859-1915)

My father told me that both of his grandfathers were murdered and he never knew either of them. His paternal grandfather,  James Augusta Trevathan, was killed in a shoot-out in 1899 at the young age of 37 years.  His maternal grandfather, John Franklin Cobb, was stabbed to death in 1915 at the age of 56 and this is his story.

John F. Cobb (left) with his brother Charles Lewis "Dixie" Cobb

Early Life in Mississippi

John Franklin Cobb was born in Franklin County, Mississippi on September 25, 1859, to Jesse Washington Cobb (1825-1897) and Sarah Ann McCaa (1828-1895).  Jesse and Sarah Cobb moved their family to Nacogdoches County, Texas in the years between 1870 and 1880. Like so many during the 19th century, Jesse was a farmer, until the lumber industry brought many sawmills and employment to the heavily wooded areas of East Texas.  By June of 1880, Jesse and Sarah were living in the Linn Flat community of Nacogdoches County, Texas with one daughter and six sons.  In the 1880 census, John Cobb was 20 years old, single, living with his parents, and working on their farm.  

John married Susan Jane McCullough, in Cherokee County, Texas on December 5, 1893.  She was from Neshoba County, Mississippi and her family migrated to Cherokee County, Texas sometime after 1880. In the 1910 census, the Cobbs lived in the logging community of Wildhurst in Cherokee County, Texas where John worked as a laborer in the lumber mill.  Also, in the 1910 census it states that was John's second marriage but I have not been able to find any proof of another previous marriage.  John was 34 years old when he married Susan but that was not so uncommon for men.  Possibly an error by the census taker. 

Family Tragedy

John and Susan moved to Durant, a small sawmill community in Angelina County, Texas sometime before 1914 because their youngest child was born in Angelina County in 1914.  My grandmother, Laura Velma Cobb Trevathan, told the story of her father's untimely death to my father, Curtis Trevathan, and apparently didn't try to cover up the events which lead to his demise.  My father related to me that John Cobb was killed on the road as he was riding his horse home after "messing around" with another man's wife!  Apparently, Susan Cobb was not aware of her husband's transgressions with the other woman because she sent her daughter, Velma, to go out and find her father.  She found him on the side of the road, stabbed and dying.  The newspapers state that George Waldrip, the man who killed John, was a neighbor and surrendered to the police officers and was taken to jail. 

John Cobb's death was tragic and caused great hardship for his wife Susan who was 39 years old and had seven children at home.  Their oldest child, Velma, was 21 years old at the time of his death and the youngest child was their son, Alvie, who was only a year old.  She had her hands full and depended on the oldest children to help work the farm and care for the younger ones.  The two oldest boys were 14 and 13 years old and not yet old enough to work outside of the home.  In the 1920 census, five years after their father's death, all of the children were still living at home.  The three oldest were her daughters, Velma, age 25, Annie, age 23, and Jessie, age 21, and the next four were her sons, John, age 19, Acie, age 17, Earnest, age 9, and Alvie, age 5.  It was unusual for girls in their twenties to still be single and living at home in the early 1900s.  Velma, and her sister, Annie, stayed at home to help keep the house and work on the farm while the other daughter, Jessie, worked as a nurse.  The two youngest boys attended school and both of the older boys worked for the lumber mill.  So it seems that the family was taken care of financially.

The Lufkin News, December 23, 1915, page 4

Dallas Morning News

   

Galveston Daily News

John Cobb's funeral expenses were $53.25 according to the funeral records of Gipson Funeral Home; $45.00 for the casket, $7.50 for the burial robe, and $0.75 for the death notice in the newspaper.  It listed his cause of death as a gunshot wound but the newspaper articles about the incident said he was killed with a knife and the family corroborates same.

 

Murder Trial

On January 4, 1916, the grand jury for the Angelina County District Court returned an indictment charging George Waldrip with murder in the first degree.  The case against Mr. Waldrip went to trial on Thursday, January 13, 1916.  The Lufkin Daily News reported that on Saturday the courtroom was crowded until standing room was at a premium.  On Wednesday, January 19th, the newspaper reported that there was a hung jury in the Waldrip case and the jurors had been discharged on Tuesday.  One newspaper article indicated that many of the jurors or maybe all of them were in favor of conviction but the term of years could not be decided.  The trial would begin again on February 8th.  I was unable to find any other online newspaper articles regarding the second trial.  

However, there was a second trial and it probably began later than February because he wasn't sentenced until May.  The penalty for the murder was 5-18 years in the state penitentiary.  I was able to find the criminal court record which shows that on May 20, 1916, George Waldrip was found guilty and sentenced to 18 years in the penitentiary which would mean his sentence would not expire until 1934.   

The State of Texas vs. George Waldrip, No. 3289

Fortune favored George Waldrip because Gov. William P. Hobby gave him a full pardon on June 2, 1920, after serving only 4 years in prison. 

Another Tragedy 

Together, the family stayed strong and survived.  All of the children eventually married and had children.  Unfortunately, another tragedy occurred with the death of their daughter, Annie Cobb Carson to a brief illness in 1925 at the age of 29.  She left behind a husband and two children, a daughter, age three, and a one-year-old son.  

Susan Cobb never remarried and sometime around 1935, after her last child left home, she moved to Tyler, Texas to live with her daughter Velma and her family.  I was fortunate to know my great-grandmother very well.  The funny and sweet little woman we called Mama Cobb was 88 years old when she died in 1965. 

Susan McCullough Cobb (sitting) with her daughters 
Jessie, Annie, and Velma, c. 1912

Susan Cobb with her three youngest sons,
 Acie, Ernest, and Alvie

Perry Tunnell (1787-1826), Methodist Minister

Perry Tunnell, son of Rev. Stephen and Kezia Money Tunnell, was born in 1787, probably in Virginia since his parents lived in Virginia until 1788.  Like his father and four of his brothers, Perry was a Methodist minister.  He married Catherine Self, daughter of Presley Self and Amelia (Amy) Gunter,  about 1807 in Alabama.  They had eleven children, seven boys and four girls, and all of them were born in Alabama, and all except the eldest moved to Texas.

Little is known about my 4th great grandfather, except that he and his wife were charter members of Cedar Mountain Methodist Church which was organized in 1819 and located about twenty miles north-east of what is now the city of Birmingham, Alabama.  Catherine's brother, Francis Self, and his wife Lydia, were also charter members of this church.  The church became known as Shiloh Methodist Church in 1826.

Rev. Perry Tunnell died in the summer of 1826 at the age of thirty-nine.  He had preached a morning sermon at a camp meeting in Alabama and died before he reached home which was only a few miles away.  His wife was left with ten children at home, the eldest only eighteen years old, and expecting their eleventh child.  Elizabeth Jane Tunnell, the last of Rev. Tunnell's children, was born on the 27th of November.  It is unknown where Perry Tunnell is buried but there is an old cemetery at the site of where the Cedar Mountain Methodist Church was located in Jefferson County, Alabama.  Some of the stones are broken or unreadable and so it seems we will never know Rev. Tunnell's earthly resting place.


Sources:


Armstrong, Z. (1926).  Notable Southern Families, In Six Volumes, Volume III.  Chattanooga, Tennessee:  Clearfield Publishing Co., Inc.

West, A.  (1893).  A History of Methodism in Alabama.  Nashville, Tennessee:  Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South.