Williamson Robert Winfield COBB, Congress, AL (1807-1864)
COBB, Williamson Robert Winfield, a Representative from Alabama; born in Rhea County, Tenn., June 8, 1807; moved in 1809 to Bellefontaine, Madison County, Ala., with his father, who settled on a plantation and engaged in the raising of cotton; received a limited education; was a clock peddler for a short time and subsequently entered the mercantile business in Bellefontaine; member of the State house of representatives in 1845 and 1846; located on a plantation in Madison County and engaged in cotton raising; elected as a Democrat to the Thirtieth and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1847, to January 30, 1861, when he withdrew; chairman, Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business (Thirty-first through Thirty-third Congresses), Committee on Public Lands (Thirty-fifth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for election to the Confederate House of Representatives in 1861; resumed agricultural pursuits in Madison County; elected in 1863 to the Confederate House of Representatives, but did not take his seat when the new Congress met, whereupon his fidelity was suspected and subsequently he was expelled by a unanimous vote; was killed by the accidental discharge of his own pistol while putting up a fence on his plantation near Bellefontaine, Ala., November 1, 1864; interment in the plot of the Cobb family estate near Cobbâs Bridge in Madison County, Ala.
Bibliography
Atkins, Leah. âWilliamson R.W. Cobb and the Graduation Act of 1854.â The Alabama Review 28 (January 1975): 16-31.Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
