1,000 Points of Light
 

There are many interesting stories about Dibrell descendants and their spouses. Here are just a few of them. Let me know if you run across others:


The Surrender at Yorktown

  • The Dibrells, Anthony, Sr. and Anthony, Jr. and Charles Lee, Sr. were at Yorktown.  Charles was serving with Lafayette at Yorktown.  Anthony Sr. had traveled to Yorktown to be with his son who had been wounded at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse.


Thomas Jefferson, a Virginian

  • Thomas Jefferson was one of the first presidential candidates to actively campaign for office. His ambition was to keep the presidency in the hands of Virginians and out of the hands of those rascally New Englanders. With the exception of the Adams family, father and son, he succeeded. Anthony Dibrell, Jr. was a loyal member of his party, the Republican Party Committee of Correspondence, representing Buckingham County.


Ishi, doing what he loved best

  • Tradition says that Sarah Lee Poston, a descendant of Charles Lee Dibrell, was introduced to her physician husband, Benjamin Franklin Pope, by the wife of General George Armstrong Custer. Her brother-in-law Gustavus William Pope, Jr. was also a physician and one of the earliest writers of science-fiction books. Her son Saxton Temple Pope, also became a physician and, while in California, became friends with Ishi, the last Yahi Indian, and helped to preserve his heritage and knowledge of bow-making and hunting.


The cast of "The Waltons" (shoes optional)

  • Earl Henry Hamner, Jr., a descendant of Judith Dibrell, wrote the "Waltons" using his parents and grandparents as the basis for the characters in the series. His father, Earl Henry Hamner, Sr., a Dibrell descendant, was the model for John Walton, the father. Grandma Walton was a composite of his grandmothers Ora Lee Mann and Susan Henry Spencer, the latter a Dibrell descendant. This means that the Dibrell family story has already been the subject of a television series, a claim that few families can make.


"The Hermitage"

  • The father-in-law of Judith Elizabeth Lee Shrewsbury, a descendant of Charles Lee Dibrell, was Charles Love, Sr., a close friend of President Andrew Jackson and who oversaw the remodeling of The Hermitage while Jackson was in Washington.


"Erin Springs"

  • Charles Lee Dibrell, Jr. married Alzira Mitchell, whose half-great uncle Israel Folsom was a chief of the Choctaw Nation. (That's probably as close as we'll get to having a so-called "Indian Princess" in the family.) Because of this heritage, the family was able to move to the Indian Territories. Their granddaughter Alzira McCaughey Murray was a successful businesswoman in Oklahoma who, after the death of her husband, was able to rescue the family estate from bankruptcy, and to amass a fortune in her own right. She was the daughter of John McCaughey, an Irish immigrant who died in the Civil War and she married Frank Murray, also an Irish immigrant. In keeping with this Irish heritage, the family farm was located at a place they named Erin Springs. The house is still standing.


Dr. Walter Reed, a Virginian, discovered
the cause of Yellow Fever in 1900

  • Anthony Dibrell, 3rd (1805-1855) was a noted preacher who gave his life tending for his flock. In the article "Parsons and Parsons", Edward Eggleston made the following statement: "But I remember to have heard once the eloquent Dibrell, of Norfolk, who sent away his household and died with his people in the yellow fever scourge." [Scribners monthly, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Nov. 1878), Scribner & son, p. 145] See Yellow Fever of Norfolk and Portsmouth Virginia, 1855.


University of PA Medical School in the 1830s

  • Jean Christoffe du Breuil, the immigrant ancestor of the Dibrell family was a physician. So many of his descendants and their spouses were doctors that it is almost a family occupation. Several attended the University of Pennsylvania Medical School:

    • Ezekiel Bryan Gilbert (1817) - husband of Martha Rookings Dibrell

    • Matthew Watson Dibrell (1835) - son of Anthony Dibrell, Jr. and Wilmuth Watson

    • James Anthony Dibrell, Sr. (1839) - grandson of Anthony Dibrell, Jr. and Wilmuth Watson

    • Edwin S. McArthur (1853) - husband of Marietta Dibrell


A Hereford cow

  • One of the residents at the Dibrell graveyard in Coleman County, Texas is "Breeze" (1887-1903), a Hereford cow and "Mother of the Dibrell herd".

  • George Christopher Gilmer (1811-1887) who m. Leanna Dibrell Lewis (1811-1845) was the great-grandson of Dr. Thomas Walker, early explorer of Kentucky, and was also the younger brother of Thomas Walker Gilmer (1802-1844), who was governor of Virginia, member of U.S. House of Representatives and Secretary of the Navy- who was killed when a naval gun exploded during a test.


Emil Gathmann and his father Louis Gathmann on their coastal defense gun

  • Victoria Wallace (1844-1910) who m. Col. Thomas Anthony Gary (1833-1908) was a grandniece of Caesar Rodney, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Col. Gary was president of the Galveston cotton exchange and, later, the postmaster of Galveston, Texas. His daughter Isabella married Emil Gathmann, an engineer and member of one of the most prolific family of inventors in American history.


The 1900 Galveston Hurricane

  • Several Dibrell cousins were living in Galveston during the 1900 hurricane, which is still ranked as the worst disaster in U.S. history, with over 8,000 people killed. The Rosenberg Library at the Galveston and Texas History Center has an extensive online collection of materials, including a letter from Geneva Dibrell Scholes describing the storm. The Dibrell families living there at the time included the families of James Watson Dibrell, Sr. (1842-1896), descendant of Anthony Dibrell, Jr. and John Wycliffe Haskins (1854-1912), a descendant of Leanna Dibrell.


Lt. David Nicholas Patteson died a month before the end of the War

  • Of all the Dibrell families that fought in the War Between the States, perhaps none suffered more than the family of John Lee Patteson and Jane Morris. All five of their sons enlisted. Three died. The other two returned with serious injuries. John Lee Patteson, the father, died just as the War was beginning. Jane Morris, the mother, died as it was ending. When Mary Harris, wife of Lt. David Nicholas Patteson, was unable to find out what had happened to her husband, she made a personal visit to General Ulysses S Grant.


General Lee signs the surrender documents

  • General Grant spent the night before he accepted the surrender of General Lee at "Clifton", the home of the parents of Mollie Sheppard Crute.  Mollie was the wife of Paul Marion Jones, son of Louise Dibrell LeGrand Jones and a great-grandson of Leanna Dibrell.  This means that the Dibrells were also present at the end of both the Revolution and the War Between the States.


Judge Joseph Burton Dibrell, Jr.

  • Judge Joseph Burton Dibrell, Jr. (1855-1934) served in the Texas Legislature and on the Texas Supreme Court.  His second wife Ella Peyton Dancy Dibrell (1862-1920) was active in civic affairs and a patron of the arts and was held in such high regard that there was talk about her running for the Legislature.  When she died, the flag at the Texas capitol was flown at half-mast.