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. 

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. 

Descendants

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.

Frances Ann Rushing (1857-1931), Testifies in Murder Trial

GRANDMA FANNIE TESTIFIES!

A little known fact about my great great grandmother - this is the record in an old 1921 court case which originated in Van Zandt County, Texas.  Statement of Facts, Cause No. 7698, The State of Texas vs. F. M. Richardson, 86th Judicial District Court of Texas, April Term, A. D., 1921.

Grandma Fannie was subpoenaed to appear as a state's witness in a local trial.  The charge was murder.  The defendant resided in the Owlet Green community and Fannie was well-acquainted with the family.  She received a subpoena from the court by virtue of having encountered and observed the defendant, Frank Richardson, late in the afternoon on the day of the alleged offense.  This observation was quite by accident.  

The case concerned the family of one of Grandma Fannie's neighbors, the Richardsons.  One brother allegedly shot and killed his own brother at their mother's residence, in her presence, and in the presence of the deceased's daughter.  The brothers' disagreement stemmed from ownership of the homestead.

The trial was held during the April 1921 Term of the 86th Judicial District Court of Texas in Van Zandt County at Canton.  One of Grandma Fannie's sons and a grandson-in-law were also called to testify.  When the docket was called and the trial began, the State's "lead-off" witness was her son, John Morgan Martin; she was the second witness.  

Here is our opportunity to hear Grandma speak!  Indeed, to hear her own words, her own language, spoken in response to questioning by the Honorable D. M. Maynor, State's attorney as follows:

My name is Mrs. Fannie Martin.  I live in the Watts Community, three miles beyond Owlet Green on the Tyler and Canton road.  That road passes my house.  I remember the night Jones Richardson was killed.  I saw Frank Richardson pass my house that afternoon.  I really don't know exactly what time it was, but it was nearly night; the sun may be been three-quarters or maybe not so high, or may a little higher; I did not notice particularly.

There were two or three wagons in the party.  I can't say for sure, but I know there were two; I don't remember whether there were any saddled horses or not.  I saw Frank Richardson in the party and spoke to him.  They were going mighty fast; the team was mighty worried.  They looked like they were being mighty worried.

Yes, it seems to me that I saw Frank Richardson making gestures with his hands as he was talking to the men; they were talking this way (indicating gestures with hands).  They were making suggestions, but I didn't hear anything; they were very interestedly talking.  They were going at good speed in the direction of the old Richardson homestead.  I did not hear of the killing until the next morning.  (Emphasis by court reporter.)

They call it three miles from my house to where the killing occurred, and it was right on the hill on the other side of my house that I met them.  I was going to my daughter's.  I said the team was trotting mighty fast - as fast as they could trot; it seemed that they were mighty worried; they were going straight toward the old Richardson homestead.

(Mr. Maynor passed the witness and Grandma Fannie was then cross-examined by the Honorable N. A. Gentry, defendant's attorney.)

Her testimony continues:

Mrs. Martin;  Of course they were going toward Owlet Green - I did not see them make the turn.  They passed up that road a half or three-quarters of an hour before sundown and were talking.  To tell you the truth I cannot see good, and I couldn't see who was driving the other wagon, and I don't know who it was; it was ________(name withheld) sitting in the wagon with Frank, I think; I took him to be _______(name withheld).  That is all I know of the matter.

I never did tell anybody that Frank Richardson was making threats; I was as innocent as could be and never thought of anything.  J. M. Martin is my son; he and John Goode are brothers-in-law.  No, I can't see well and I did not particularly notice the hindmost wagon to see who was in it.  I particularly noticed the gestures - I knew they were mighty interested, it seemed like; I don't know what they were talking about, as I didn't understand anything.  My daughter was with me and we gave them the road.

(Upon trial of the case the defendant was found guilty of the offense of murder, and punishment was assessed by verdict of the jury at twenty-five years in the state penitentiary.  The defendant appealed the case; the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the District Court's judgment, and the defendant was committed to the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville for a period of twenty-five years.)

We can only imagine how uncomfortable and out of her element Fannie must have felt in this situation.  One thing we do know from this testimony - she certainly liked to use the word "mighty".  The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, had only been ratified in August 1920.  Women were not usually involved in public actions and their primary activities were limited to caring for children and maintaining a home.  However, just looking at her picture, I can only imagine that she knew how to stand her ground!

Frances Ann "Fannie" Rushing was born 31 December 1857 in Rusk County, Texas and was the second child of Allen Rushing, a Methodist minister, and his second wife, Caroline Cevers.  Fannie and John Thomas "Tom" Martin married 20 June 1874 in Rusk County and moved shortly after that to Van Zandt County, Texas where their first child, Joseph Allen Martin was born on 5 July 1875, followed by ten other children.   Their fifth child, Wade, died at age 4 and their sixth child, Ollie, died in infancy.  They lived and raised their large family in a modest farm home in the Owlet Green and Watts community.  Tom was a farmer and a peddler and Fannie was a housewife.  In those days, a peddler sold wares (kitchen items, yard goods, etc.) door-to-door during the season when the weather hampered farm labor.  Fannie was a member of the Methodist Church which was just a short distance down the road from their house and she was known throughout the community as a "shouting Christian".  I'm still not sure exactly what that means - more research needed!

After Tom's death in October 1914, Fannie stayed in their home and spent much of her time visiting with her children and grandchildren.  After her youngest child Luther married in 1920, he and his wife, Evelyn "Elvie" McGraw, moved in with Fannie to help her take care of the farm.  In 1924, Luther was killed in an accident and Fannie moved to the home of her daughter, Beulah Corley.

On 27 September 1928, Fannie married J. F. Alexander, a retired Methodist minister whom she met through her sister, Victoria Rushing, known as Aunt Vick.  Fannie and Mr. Alexander moved to Tyler,  where he operated a retail grocery establishment.  Though their marriage was not a long one she seemed happy and was visited often by family.

Fannie died on 27 July 1931 and was buried beside Tom Martin in Marvin's Chapel Cemetery in Van Zandt County.  She was survived by Mr. Alexander, three daughters, five sons, and a number of grandchildren.  The burial site was at her request.  It is stated in her obituary that she was born in Smith County but I believe this was an error because deed records indicate that her father Allen Rushing owned hundreds of acres of land in Rusk County and no deed record found in Smith County until 1862.  Also, Fannie was three years old in the 1860 census and the family was living in Rusk County.

Obituary
Frances (Fannie) Rushing Martin Alexander
Tyler Daily Courier-Times
July 28, 1931, Page 3