Third Generation
15. Robert 'Robin'
WEBB was born about 1804 in Carroll County, Virginia.12 He died on 4 Feb 1884 in Carroll County, Virginia.12
The Robin Webb Cemetery off Route 844 has five graves marked with fieldstones.
By tradition the following are buried there: Robin and wife Elizabeth along
with a daughter, and Major Thomas and wife Louiza McGrady, Robert 'Robin' WEBB
and Catherine Elizabeth 'Betsy or Betty' NESTER were married on 28 Jul 1825 in
Grayson County, Virginia.38
Catherine Elizabeth 'Betsy or Betty' NESTER (daughter
of Jacob NESTER and Catherine GOAD) was born about 1801 in Carroll County, Virginia.12 She died on 26 Oct 1891 in Carroll
County, Virginia.12 She
was also known as Catherine Elizabeth 'Betsy or Betty' Webb. Robert
'Robin' WEBB and Catherine Elizabeth 'Betsy or Betty' NESTER had the following
children:
+101 | i. | Robert WEBB Jr. was born in Grayson
County, Virginia.6 | 102 | ii. | Mary WEBB was
born about 1827 in Virginia.58 | +103 | iii. | Anderson WEBB
was born on 8 Dec 1829 in Grayson County, Virginia.59,60,61 He died on 1 Jul 1899.61 He died on 4 Jul 1899.62 He was buried in Banks Cemetery, Carroll County, Virginia.61
The Banks Cemetery, Carroll County and the Reed Island Springs Baptist Church
Cemetery, Patrick County are the same cemetery. The Patrick County cemetery
book lists the birth of Anderson as 8 Dec and his death as 4 July.
"Mahalah and Anderson lived on Big Reed near the community of Crooked
Oak." (Quesinberry, Martin Family, Carroll County, p.5)
He enlisted in the 63rd VA Inf. March 1863 at Dublin. His military record
states he was buried during the war which is in error.
On 15 Sept 1902 his widow, Mahalia applied for a Civil War widow's pension
stating that he had "chronic diarrhea (sic) & paralysis" and, "He
was not able to work much since the war." | +104 | iv. | Rebecca R. WEBB was born about 1832 in
Virginia.58 She was also
known as Rebecca R. Nester. | +105 | v. | William Richard WEBB was born about 1834
in Virginia.58 He died on
6 Apr 1888 in Carroll County, Virginia.12
He was buried in Hardy-Jenkins, Cem., Carroll County, Virginia.
Enlisted in Co. G, 63rd VA Inf. 15 May 1862 at Camp Jackson. On 8 Oct 1862
at Montgomery White Sulpher Springs General Hospital W.R. Webb was found unfit
for duty. "We certify that having carefully examined Private - WR Webb
63d Va Vols Co G and find him unable to perform the duties of a soldier because
of hemorrhoids of sever.. standing. We therefore recommend his fin.. discharge
from the service."
He also served in the Carroll County Military Reserves. (Weaver, [UL: 63
Virginia Infantry) | +106 | vi. | John
J. WEBB was born about 1837 in Carroll County, Virginia.3 He died before 1900.
The 1900 census lists Sarah A. Webb as a widow. | +107 | vii. | General Henry WEBB was born about 1841
in Carroll County, Virginia.63
He died on 9 Dec 1880 in Carroll County, Virginia.12
The dates on this record are confusing as General could not be court martialled
before deserting. He joined Co. I, 63rd Reg't VA INF as a private in Capt Letrell
H. Hampton's Co. of Virginia Volunteers 15 May 1862 at Camp Jackson and enlisted
27 May 1862. Deserted 26 Aug 1963 and ceased to belong to rolls 31 Dec 1863.
He was captured in Carroll County. Court Martial 9 Jun 1863. He was sentenced
to the penitentiary for one year 15 April 1863 and received no pay from 1 Mar
1863. He served at Louisville, Kentucky. I believe he became a prisoner of
war as the North later used this facility to house their prisoners, and his records
contain a card used by the North for other prisoners. He was discharged 26 Sept
1864 and signed an "Oath and to remain North of Ohio River" at Louisville
Kentucky. He had a light complexion, light hair, blue eyes, and stood 5'10"
tall. (National Archives military records) A family member believes that General
Webb may have deserted twice causing the difficulty understanding the records.
Court Martial findings at the National Archives find private General H.
Webb charged with desertion, guilty and "do therefore sentence him, the
said private General H. Webb,'to work at hard labor, in a penitentiary, for one
year, the said term of confinement to commence with his incarceration, with reasonable
dispatch, in said penitentiary, and to forfeit all pay from the 1st day of March,
1863, up to the expiration of his term of confinement.'"
"Tradition is that General Webb was a very likeable man who had the
misfortune of getting into a fight with Josh Nester whom he later shot and killed.
He was tried and convicted and put to death for the killing even though most
people thought the killing was justified." (Turner, Webb Families, p.32)
Josh Nester was General's father-in-law, and General was hung. The death register
reads hung for murder.
The following appeared in a special to the Wytheville Dispatch, 9 Jan,
1880: "General H. Webb was executed at this place today, for the murder
of Joshua Nestor, Sr. An immense throng numbering perhaps three or four thousand
persons was assembled in and about town to witness the last revolting scene in
the great criminals life." He "insisted that he was innocent until
Sunday Dec. 28th, when some friends gave him some liquor, with which he became
intoxicated. He then confessed that he had committed the murder and implicated
his wife in the murder. Upon recovering from his intoxication, he was told of
what he... and he promptly and flatly denied it and again protested his innocence;
but on the day before his execution he again confessed his crime, but said; 'I
thought I was justifiable in what I did. I was told that the old man Nestor
had threatened my life and my wife's.'.... The execution was private, and it
was conducted in a corral formed by planks set on end."
"The history of the crime is as follows: On the forth day of August,
1879 Joshua Nestor, Sr., who was a man of about 85 years of age was at work with
his wife binding oats in a field about, 11 o'clock in the morning, and was shot
in the back and instantly killed by some person at that time unknown. Suspicion
immediately rested on his nephew and son-in-law, General H. Webb. The sheriff
at once summoned his posse, composed of over a hundred men, who after an arduous
search among the cliffs and hills, succeeded in capturing their man on the 8th
day of August." Nestor "was in such a position that none but a left-handed
man as the prisoner proved to have been, could have fired a weapon with sufficient
accuracy to have struck the object aimed at; that the tracks leading from this
rest to Webb's house were made by shoes exactly similar in shape and size as
those usually worn by him; and bark displaced from the tree and the holes made
in the soft earth between the tree and the soft earth between the tree and prisoner's
house fitted the ferrule of a cane which Webb was in the habit of using. The
final and strongest link in the chain was the fact of his proposition to a Patrick
County friend, some time prior to the murder, to butcher the old man and divide
the spoils of his property which Webb, thought his wife, would inherit at Nestor's
demise. These testimonies became so weighty and uncontrovertible, combined with
the energy of the prosecuting counsel, that, in accordance with the verdict of
the jury, on the 26th day of Oct. Judge Fulton pronounced sentence of death upon
him. A petition was placed before the Governor praying that his sentence be
commuted to imprisonment for life in the penitentiary, which was refused. Webb
was a criminal of the blackest hue; a terror to those of his neighborhood, and
a reproach to his county. The general impression is that his doom is just."
According to Susan Thigpen of The Mountain Laurel, the Wytheville Dispatch
was burned during the Battle of Wytheville and was published for several months
during 1864-5 at Hillsville, Va. It later merged with the Southwest Virginia
Enterprise. | 108 | viii. | Margaret
WEBB was born about 1847 in Virginia.64 | +109 | ix. | Major Thomas WEBB
was born in 1847 in Carroll County, Virginia.3 |
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