Working on Wednesday: Abner Webb (About 1834 - About 1861), Carpenter

The first record we have that mentions this maternal great great grandfather by name* is in the 1850 U.S. Census in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; his age was listed as 16 and his occupation as "Lab" (for laborer). It doesn't appear that the family owned any real estate so he and his father probably were either renting farm land or working for neighbors. Abner was the oldest child with a brother Jesse** and sister Elizabeth, all of whom were born in Pennsylvania.

[Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, 1009 rolls); Records of the Bureau of the Census, Record Group 29; National Archives, Washington, D.C.]

By 1856 his and his brother were in Jones County, Iowa, where on November 6th of that year Abner married Mercy Ann Darling***

In their grandfather Jesse Sill's will, dated July 17, 1857, and probated five months later, both Abner and Jesse were left bequests of $300****. Since no mention is made of their mother Jane we assume that she predeceased her father and we have no record of their father Isaac Webb later than the 1850 U.S. Census.

["Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994," images, FamilySearch ( https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1961-28783-25273-3?cc=1999196&wc=9PMJ-MNG:268499101,281994701 : accessed 11 January 2015), Allegheny - Wills 1855-1860 vol 8 no 79-vol 9 no 304 - image 1574 of 3099; county courthouses, Pennsylvania.]

The 1860 U.S. Census listed 26-year old Abner Webb as one of three carpenters working for a well-to-do attorney in Collin County, Texas. And that's the last official record we have for him.

[Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Original data: 1860 U.S. census, population schedule. NARA microfilm publication M653, 1,438 rolls. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.]

What happened to him? Family stories are conflicting--one view is that he was forced into fighting for the Confederacy and another story places him with Sherman's army in Georgia. There is no evidence to support either claim. Another possibility, also unverified, is that he was in Galveston when his only son, Jesse David Webb, was reported born on July 17, 1860, and died there in one of the yellow fever or cholera epidemics that plagued that city.


*Their surname was spelled Weub in this census.
**Named for his maternal grandfather Jesse Sill.
***The next year his brother married her sister Nancy Adelia Darling.
****Originally they were left $350 but Jesse Sill changed his mind and crossed out the 50. I've already posted about their sister Elizabeth's bequest here.

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