New Hope Cemetery Inquiry and Cobb Family History

A telephone call led me on a research dig, first about the New Hope Methodist Church Cemetery in Union County, Georgia and then to the Cobb family who buried at least twelve family members there in marked graves. Maybe there were other Cobb family members buried there, for some fifty plus graves have no identity indicators other than unmarked fieldstones.

Strangely enough, the inquiry was not about the Cobb family, but rather about the King family. A granddaughter of Mr. Henry King called me. Mr. King was buried in one of the unmarked graves at old New Hope Cemetery. His son had a stone made, but died before he could erect it, and now the granddaughter and grandson want to fulfill their father’s desire to mark his father’s grave. Finding my name attached to a “Through Mountain Mists” column, she called to ask me if I could give her directions to the cemetery.

Thanks to Mr. Dale Elliott and the late Mr. Charlie Wimpey who compiled and edited Cemetery Records of Union County, Georgia in 1990, I quickly found New Hope Cemetery listed. I read to her from the book, page 300: “From the old courthouse square in Blairsville, it is 8.4 miles north on U. S. 129, then ¼ mile on Cobb Mountain Road.” She said that she and her brother knew the location of the unmarked grave, and would soon be erecting the tombstone at Mr. Henry King’s grave.

From the cemetery book, I learned that the New Hope Methodist Church was founded about 1851 as evidenced by a recorded deed of land in Union County Courthouse. Mr. Moses Anderson transferred property on which the church was located to five men who were trustees of the church, namely W. A. Cobb, U. C. Wilson, B. F. Stiles, Joseph C. Neece and W. W. Odom. I found it interesting that not a single one of these men had named markers in the New Hope Cemetery. Maybe some of them were interred there for the cemetery book states there are more than 50 unmarked graves. I found Joseph C. Neece listed as buried in the Ivy Log Cemetery. New Hope Church either was incorporated with another Methodist church in the community or was disbanded. The building was torn down in the 1940’s and now only the cemetery with its 33 marked graves and 50+ unmarked graves remains to show that an early church met there.

Since a dozen of the marked graves at New Hope have the Cobb last name, my curiosity sent me searching for these early settlers. The earliest marked grave was that of Lydia Keys Cobb with the dates 1773-1848. In fact, this lady’s rather elaborate tombstone is pictured in the cemetery book on the New Hope pages as the first person interred there. Evidently the Cobbs were in Union before 1848 to have a family member buried at New Hope, perhaps as the very first person buried there.

And then I discovered a mystery. Reading the Cobb family histories submitted for The Heritage of Union County (pages 99-100), checking the Union County census records of 1834, 1840 and 1850, and again reading the tombstone of Lydia Keys Cobb from Cemetery Records of Union County showing the tombstone with death date of 1848, I immediately thought: “Something’s wrong in the records.”

I found that Lydia Cobb was listed in the 1850 Census, age 77, as living in the home of her son, William Cobb. According to her tombstone, she died in 1848. William’s wife Charlotte (she was also buried at New Hope Cemetery) and William and Charlotte’s nine children all born in North Carolina, were listed in the 1850 census. Either the census taker was wrong about Mrs. Lydia Cobb still being alive in 1850 or the date on her tombstone is wrong.

Tracing more about William and Charlotte Cobb, I found this information. There were no Cobb families in Union County census records until the 1850 census listing. Then William was 40, his wife Charlotte was 45, and their nine children were Reuben, 19, John 18, Rebecca, 16, Joseph, 14, Louisa, 13, James, 11, Rufus, 8, Elbert, 6, and Harrison, 3. And there, at the end of this family listing is Lydia Cobb, age 77. All had been born in North Carolina What gives? Her tombstone has her death date as 1848, and from her birth date, 1773, according to her tombstone she died at age 75. I think it is not likely there were two women in the same household named Lydia Cobb, and since the one buried at New Hope has the maiden name Keys, I found that she was definitely the mother of William Alfred Cobb.

William Alfred Cobb (8/10/1809-8/5/1886) was the only child of Lydia Keys Mullen Cobb, second wife of William’s father, John Paul Cobb, a Revolutionary War soldier who moved from Charlotte to Newburn, NC. There William Alfred Cobb married, first, Charlotte Henson whose father Daniel was a Revolutionary War soldier. They lived in Haywood County, NC where William was sheriff and an ordained Methodist minister. William Alfred Cobb was a unionist, and did not like states seceding prior to the Civil War. He decided to move his family to Union County, Georgia in 1848 so he could be among more who supported the union.

Since he was one of the Trustees of the New Hope Methodist Church in Ivy Log District when Moses Anderson granted land on which the church and cemetery were located, my supposition is that the Rev. William Alfred Cobb may have been the organizing minister of the church when it was formed. Regardless of the confusing date from the 1850 census which still shows Lydia (Keys) Cobb alive at age 77, and the gravestone death date that shows her death as 1848, William Alfred’s mother was definitely the first burial at the New Hope Cemetery. His wife, Charlotte Henson Cobb, was the second burial there. Her death date was May 22, 1861.

William Alfred Cobb married his second wife, Lavinia Roberts, on February 2, 1862 in Union County, Georgia with the Rev. Thomas M. Hughes, noted Methodist minister, performing the ceremony. After the Civil War, in 1872, William and Lavinia moved to Beaver Dam in Cherokee County, NC. There they lived out their lives and he was buried at his death in 1886 in the Unaka Cemetery in an unmarked grave.

c 2009 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Oct. 22, 2009 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Taylor Cobb, U.S. Revenue agent

Part of our past in the mountain regions of North Georgia has been the contraband manufacture of whiskey, better known in these parts as "moonshine" because the "runoff" from the stills was often completed at night time to avoid the smoke from the still being detected by the revenue agents, commissioned by the federal government to find and ferret out the makers of this liquid corn product.

One of the noted U. S. Revenue agents of another century was Taylor Cobb. He not only had a penchant for interacting with the people, but he told many stories of his adventures as an agent, even writing many of them for subsequent generations to enjoy.

This story from Agent Taylor Cobb's repertoire was given to me by Wilson Cobb of Fannin County, who delights in sharing anything historical that was once printed in his family's newspapers, “The Dooly News” or “The Fannin County Times”.

On a Saturday morning, April 1, in the early 1880's Taylor Cobb set out on his horse named Old Steel. His intended purpose was to find a still and make arrests out in the mountains.

He soon came to what he called a very dilapidated log church away back in the mountains. Since services were often held on Saturday afternoon in those days, a group of people had gathered for services. They asked what he was doing in those parts. He said he was a "naturalist," a mineralogist, and produced some sample stones from his saddlebag to substantiate his story.

The gathered congregation waited awhile longer for the preacher to arrive, and the minister didn't come. Then Taylor Cobb asked them if they would accept the comments of one of the "Hardshell Confession of Faith" to speak to them. The people agreed. Cobb took a New Testament from his saddle bag, and in the old log church he began to speak.

He took his text and began to preach passionately on temperance, stating that he considered drunkenness to be a terrible crime, bringing loss and degradation to the perpetrator, but also desolation to the families touched by the drunkard's evil ways. He did add, however, that a "little wine was good for the stomach's sake," according to the Apostle Paul.

In typical fashion, he laid forth his sermon for an hour and a half, all the while keeping the attention of his hearers. They kept him going by well-placed "Amens". He wrote: "My 'God-blessed tone' melted their hearts, and soon tears, sobs, shouting, handshaking, and rejoicing filled the shack. After the service, a deacon took me to his home to spend the night."

At the evening meal, his host deacon told Cobb, still not recognizing him as a U. S. Revenue Agent, that his son was making moonshine whiskey. This fact saddened the deacon. Cobb said that he had always wondered how the liquor was made. The deacon offered to take him to his son's still, since he was doubling off a run that very night.

When the pair got to the still deep within the mountains, the old deacon took off his old cap-and-ball pistol, laid it on a shelf, and went to work at the still himself. After the deacon got well into the process, Agent Cobb grabbed the man's pistol and arrested his son, the supposed owner of the still.

He put the captured moonshiner on Old Steel behind himself, and started for the nearest jail. Since it was late at night, the two agreed to stop at a cabin along the way to get some rest. At the next house, they awoke the owner and the old man gave the two- agent and captive- the best bed in the house. Exhausted from his hard day's journey, the energy exerted to preach the gospel, and the arrest of the moonshiner whose father had been his host, Cobb soon fell asleep.

When Taylor Cobb awoke the next morning, he found his prisoner gone. He had taken Cobb's pants with $25.00 in his pocket. Cobb told the man of the house that he was a "traveling preacher, and had picked up the man the previous evening along his route, and that he had robbed him. The man gave him a garment of his own, which Cobb described as "fitting him like a bolt of loose cloth." After an excellent breakfast at the cabin, Cobb was soon on his way. He put money in the mail and sent it to the man who had loaned him the suit.

The very next year, President Hayes issued a general pardon for moonshiners. Cobb saw this as a way to get the deacon's son off from arrest and a year in prison. He went to the man and offered to get him "off" if he would repay him his stolen $25 and the cost of the suit he had stolen. The two went to Atlanta, and Cobb pleaded the man's case, getting him off without a jail term.

On their way back to the mountains from Atlanta, Cobb told the deacon's son that he would "get others off" if they would surrender. Twenty-eight moonshine makers came to Cobb, confessing their part in the manufacture of mountain spirits. Cobb summarily pleaded their cases in Atlanta and they were pardoned.

"They thought it was my influence that got them released," wrote Cobb. "I soon became the most popular man in that area. Even the old deacon forgave me and sang my praises from the housetops on every occasion."

Taylor Cobb, this man of the mountains and U. S. Revenue Agent, was born June 14, 1846 and died May 31, 1920. He was interred in New Hope Methodist Cemetery in the Ivy Log District of Union County, Georgia. The oldest grave in the cemetery with a legible name is that of Lydia Keys Cobb who was born in 1773 and died in 1848. The church was founded in 1851 and W. A. Cobb was one of the first trustees. How these relate to the notable revenue agent will take some more research.

c 2007 by Ethelene Dyer Jones; published Mar. 22, 2007 in The Union Sentinel, Blairsville, GA. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.