William Cobbs

Notes:

Near the end of his life, Jefferson sought to find permanent residents for the property, and his grandson Francis W. Eppes and wife Mary Elizabeth moved to Poplar Forest shortly after their 1823 marriage.[6] Jefferon died in 1826, and made his last visit to Poplar Forest in 1823.[8] The Eppses sold Poplar Forest in November 1828 to William Cobbs; Cobbs assigned the task of managing the property to his son in law Edward Hutter in 1840 following his marriage to Cobb?s daughter Emma.[6] This period from 1745-1840 in which Poplar Forest was sold many times in quick succession meant that many enslaved men, women, and children were separated from their families as the owners settled their predecessor's debts. The Cobbs and Hutter families maintained ownership of Poplar Forest into the twentieth century. The Hutter?s son Christian purchased the property in the late nineteenth century and used it as a summer home and working farm into the 1940s using labor from both black and white hired farmhands and tenant farmers.[6]

Christian Hutter sold the property to James Watts? family in 1946; the Watts family operated Poplar Forest as a dairy farm and worked with Phelps Barnum and W. Stuart Thompson to restore the house to the way it appeared during Jefferson?s time.[6] They also did significant landscape development, and sold a majority of the remaining land to a developer who constructed a nine-hole golf course and a lake along the eastern and southern part of the property.[6]

Dr. James Johnson purchased the house and 50 acres of land from the Watts family in 1980; the nonprofit Corporation for Jefferson?s Poplar Forest purchased the acreage and the remaining physical structures on the property in 1984.[9] The organization has worked in recent years to reacquire land within the original plantation boundaries, and as of 2008 owned 617 acres of the original property.[

William married Marian Stannard Scott 1 Nov 1821, Campbell County, Virginia. Marian (daughter of Major Samuel Scott and Ann Roy) was born 20 Jun 1803, Lynchburg, Virginia; died 30 May 1877, Bedford Co., VA; was buried , St. Stephens Episcopal Church Cem., Bedford Co., Virginia. [Group Sheet]

1. Emma William Cobbs was born 25 Oct 1822, Bedford County, Virginia; died 9 Jul 1870, Bedford County, Virginia; was buried , Saint Stephens Episcopal Church Cemetery, Bedford County, Virginia.