Mary Webb Evans - Descendants and Family History
Mary Webb

We know very little about Mary.  She was born about 1800, probably in North Carolina.  She was supposedly the sister of Hiram Webb.  She married Thomas Evans at some point before 1820, probably not much earlier.  In the 1820 census of Lincoln County, Tennessee, the family was recorded this way:
1820 Lincoln County, Tennessee Census
Page 43
Thomas Evans
1 male 18-26 (a younger brother?)
1 male 26-45 (Thomas, 29)
1 female 16-26 (Mary, ca 23)
Employed in agriculture
They were living next to Hiram Webb and also next to James Evans.  We still aren't sure about the relationship of Thomas and James.  They may have been brothers or maybe James was Thomas' father.  They moved at some point in the next decade down to what is today Lamar County, Alabama, around the Pine Springs community.  In 1825, Thomas bought 80 acres of land on the Bartahatchee River bottom right north of where Alabama State Highway 17 crosses it today. They were living there in the 1830 census.  There are a number of problems with this census, but the number of children we expect matches up with the number that they have.  It is certainly the right family, but the ages are almost all about two years off what we might expect given dates of birth provided by them all as adults much later:
1830 Marion (modern Lamar) County, Alabama Census
Thomas Evans
2 Males under 5 (Will Tom, 4; John ca. 0?)
1 Male 5-10 (Charles, 7)
1 Male 40-50 (Thomas, 39)
1 Female 5-10 (Louisa J. ca. 2?)
2 Females 10-15 (Betty ca. 8?; Mary A. ca. 5?)  
1 Female 20-30 (Mary, 30)
In 1835, Tom bought 40 more acres of land just to the east of modern State Highway 17 today in the middle of what is known as Pine Springs.  It had better farmland and wasn't such a swampy area.  

Together, Thomas and Mary had about eight children.  She became very ill after the birth of the last one, Richard Green Evans, and Tom brought in Mary's niece, Lucinda Webb, to help take care of her for a while.  She passed away a little after Lucinda came to help.  That was in 1835, and Mary was about 35 when she passed away.  She would have been one of the very first ones to die after the families had moved into the area around Pine Springs, so she may or may not have been buried in a cemetery.  She could be the first person buried in the Evans Cemetery, since Tom already owned land around there at this time.

 Lucinda stayed to help with all the young children, and Tom and she married shortly afterwards.  You can find more information about them here: Lucinda Webb Evans.


Children of Mary Webb, first wife of Thomas Evans

Unknown Evans (md. ?)
     From the 1830 and 1840 census, it looks as though one male child of Thomas and Mary was living with them before 1850, but we do not know if he died before he reached an adult age or if he moved away.  I think it's likely that he died young. 

Elizabeth C. "Betsy" Evans (md. William A. Young, then Barzilla F. Weatherford)
     Betsy (or Betty) was born in 1822, probably in Alabama.  She married William Young in 1836 and had quite a few children, some of whom moved to Texas but some stayed behind in Northwest Alabama.  He was about six years older than she was, and he died on January 18, 1864, and she was left with a house full of young children.  She was living with her daughter for a while, but at some point after 1880, she married Barzilla F. Weatherford, his third marriage.  He was born in 1806 and was 16 years older than her.  She died at some point before September of 1895, probably in Lamar County.  She had no known children by Mr. Weatherford.

Charles Evans (md. ?)
     It looks like the Charles Evans on the 1840 census in Marion County could be one of Thomas' oldest children, but I've never seen anything to absolutely confirm this.  The census entry is confusing though, showing two people at 10-15, and one under 10.  

Mary A. Evans (md. James Green Young)
     Mary was born in August of 1825 in Alabama.  She and James Green had at least thirteen children.  She was listed on the 1900 census in Lamar County with one servant, but I have not been able to find anything else about what happened to her children when they were grown.

Louisa Jane Evans (md. James M. Ray)
     Louisa Jane was born about 1826 and she and James must have married in about 1845.  She had six known children, one of whom died young and one looks like he died in the Civil War.  She passed away on October 29, 1877 (maybe 1874?) and was buried in Wesley Chapel Cemetery, Lamar County, Alabama.   James might have remarried after she died (if that was in 1874), but he died  soon after, in 1875.

William Thomas Evans (md. Narcissa Jane Winstead)
     Tom was very well known in the Sulligent area.  He was born on January 26, 1826, and married Narcissa Jane about 1847.  They never had any children though.  When he passed away on September 28, 1895, and was buried in the Evans Cemetery, their niece Eliza Ann Evans Blaylock moved in with them for a number of years.  Narcissa Jane lived until April 14, 1922, when she passed away at age 95.

John C. G. Evans (md. Mary A. Lee)
     John was born about 1831 in the Pine Springs area.  Sometime shortly after 1850, he married Mary A. Lee and had a number of children.  He was still living in 1880 in Lamar County, but I have never seen his tombstone or found out what happened to any of his eight or so children.

Green Evans Richard Green Evans (md. Nancy Ann Noe)
     We know more about Richard Green than any of Thomas and Mary's children.  He was born on January 10, 1835 in Pine Springs.  He and Nancy married in 1857 and had ten children, eight of which lived to an adult age.  Two of their kids moved out west, but the rest stayed in the area.  He passed away in 1908 at the age of 72.  She died in 1923 at the age of 84.  They are both buried in the Evans Cemetery.



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Photo of Richard Green Evans in possession of David A. Webb.  We always thought it was of Dave Evans, but we are sure now it is Dave's brother, Richard Green Evans.  Green was missing one finger and it's visible in the rest of the photo.