This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/4AB.2ACI/316 Message Board Post: JOHN COBB, my gr gr grandfather, said in his 1881 biography that he was born 19 May 1814 in Henry County, KY. unfortunately he failed to tell his parents or siblings names. I would appreciate hearing form ANYONE with any information on him. I am including a portion of his biography. History of Lake County, Valley Publishers, 1759, Fulton Street, Fresno, CA 93721, 1974. Reprinted from History of Napa and Lake Counties, CA, Slocum, Bowen and Company, San Francisco, 1881. Historian of this book was Lyman L. Palmer. Biographical Sketch, p. 227 COBB, JOHN. Was born in Henry County, Kentucky, May 19, 1814. His father was a farmer. When John was but a child, his father moved to Indiana where they remained for six years, when they returned to Kentucky. When John was sixteen years of age, they returned to Indiana and his father resided in Jefferson County for five years, and then moved to Arkansas, where he died. In 1832, John went to Vigo County, Indiana, on the Wabash River, where he followed keel-boating, carrying freight to all the towns on the river. In October, on one of his trips, he laid up for the night at the foot of Coffee Island, eight miles below the Grand Rapids and two miles below Mount Carmel. About eight o'clock, he noticed quite a commotion taking place with the stars; they all seemed to be falling towards the earth; they seemed to increase thicker and faster until about midnight, when all of them seemed to part in the center above, falling towards the earth in all directions. They resembled many balls of fire, each leaving a brilliant light behind it; one would not get out of sight til another would be coming on the same line. The whole firmament seemed to be in a blaze of fire; it was the most beautiful sight he ever saw in his life. The stars seemed to gradually decrease in motion until about four o'clock in the morning, when all was quiet and every star wa! s in its proper place. He then proceeded down the rive into the Ohio, and down that stream to Paducah, at the mouth of the Tennessee River; he then went up the Tennessee with the keel-boat to Florence, in Tennessee; then he returned to Indiana - to the Grand Rapids, on the Wabash River. There he put in a crop of corn, sold it out, and went to Lafayette, Tippecanoe County, Indiana, where he got a team and went back to Madison, in Jefferson County, after his mother, two sisters and brother and moved to Iowa Territory. They stopped at a place called Bloomington, which had one house in it, owned by John Vanater, the proprietor of the place. It soon grew up, however, to be quite a village and place of trade. It is located on the banks of the upper Mississippi River, thirty miles below Rock Island and sixty miles above Burlington. The name has since been changed to Muscatine City, Muscatine County. He then resided in that place where he followed farming and trading, for three years. In 1939, he took his mother on a visit to her mother who resided in Madison, Indiana, in April of that year. From there he returned to Iowa; staying there until fall, and started for Texas; got as far as Arkansas and was taken sick with the white swelling, which left him a cripple for life. He gave up the trip to Texas and returned again to Iowa in the spring of 1841, and remained there until 1843. He then went to Quincy, Illinois. Was married to Miss Jane Ann Leypold, April 18, 1845, who was a native of Ohio. Their first child, a son, was born February 18, 1845 and died August 15, 1845. The next, a daughter, was born January 13, 1847. He lost his wife on January 12, 1848 and his daughter died January 16, 1848. On August 17, 1848, he was married to his second wife, Miss Esther E. Deming, who is still living. She is a native of Ohio, and the mother of six children, whose names are as follows: John Rufus, George Oliver, Joseph Deming, Mary H. O., William Thomas, and Hester E., who are all living. The first one, John R. was born September 22, 1849, and the sixth one, Hester E., was born July 8, 1858. In the spring of 1850, he started across the plains with an ox-team en route for California, bringing his family, consisting then of his wife and one child with him. They reached Salt Lake, August 17, 1850, but owing to the delicate health of Mrs. Cobb, they remained there until the spring of 1851, when they crossed the mountains, and arrived at Ringgold, near Placerville, California on July 1st of that year. He then engaged in mining for about three weeks, when he bought into a grocery store and kept boarding house, which business he followed until September. Please email me at marhinton@netscape.net. Thank you, Margie