The remarkable Thomas Hubbard Hobbs

MADISON – If you use Google to search on the name Thomas Hubbard Hobbs, you will likely see what is written about him by the University of Alabama in their digital collection: “ Hobbs was a lawyer, planter, and legislator from Athens, Limestone County, Alabama. He served as captain of Co. F., Ninth Alabama Infantry Regiment, during the Civil War. He was born on 19 April 1826. He represented Limestone County in the legislature from 1856 to 1861. He attended LaGrange College in Alabama, Hoffman’s Law Institution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the University of Virginia. He married Indiana Elizabeth Booth on 4 August 1852 in Richmond, Virginia. She died in 1854 in Athens, Alabama, after childbirth, and their baby girl died, as well. He later remarried Anne Benagh on 17 February 1958, in Lynchburg, Virginia. They had a two children. Thomas Maclin Hobbs was born on 29 November 1958, and James Benagh Hobbs was born in 1862.”

While the above synopsis provides basic information and confirms that Thomas Hobbs was indeed a resident of Limestone County for most of his life, such a biography nowhere near tells of his remarkable achievements or connections in North Alabama history, including the area of the City of Madison and its precity history. What he said about himself and his involvements with the citizens of Alabama (and indeed of the United States) of his time is better documented in a book entitled “THE JOURNALS OF THOMAS HUBBARD HOBBS, particularly as edited, explained, or expanded by insertion of additional material by Limestone County’s most prolific and accurate historical author, Faye Acton Axford. Faye, with co-author Chris Edwards, who died in 1977, also wrote a primary and very comprehensive history of Limestone County, entitled “The Lure and Lore of Limestone County” as published in 1978. In the Limestone County history book of more than 400 pages, Faye wrote more than 50 pages about the family and events of Thomas Hubbard Hobbs – more than for any other character of the county’s long history, and I have been privileged to own and often research in a personal copy of each of these books.

Obviously, the life story of Tom Hobbs is much more detailed than can be comprehensively offered in my own articles now. However, I will say that I have not been so impressed by any other historical character of Alabama as with Tom Hobbs. He began to write an almost daily diary in 1840 at age 14, as if he knew that someday some later generations might want to know about life during his time. Tom at the young age of about 35 was even seriously and widely suggested as a strong candidate for Governor of Alabama, which he had not sought, just about the time of the outbreak of the Civil War. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 36 after receiving a leg wound in the Battle of Gaines’ Mill on June 27, 1862, defending Richmond, Virginia. He lay in the battlefield all night without aid and was taken within a few days to Lynchburg, where his wife had relatives. He died there on July 22, 1862, and was buried in the Spring Hill Cemetery of Lynchburg, but even today there is a large monument dedicated to his memory in the Athens City Cemetery. His service as a Captain of Company F of the 9th Alabama Infantry in the Confederate Army was not a highly significant accomplishment in his life. What made Thomas Hubbard Hobbs so outstanding were his vast education and faith, widespread accomplishments in a variety of fields, humble character, regional activities, and associated innumerable contacts or interfaces with the famous people of his years in Alabama and all across America. Few people of any time could match his record, as revealed very casually in his own journal for us to see today.

Thomas was born into affluence and prominent historical families. His maternal grandfather was Major Thomas Maclin of Brunswick County, Virginia. Thomas Maclin served in both houses of the Virginia legislature before the War of 1812, but his ancestor, William Maclin was a judge at the time of the formation of that county in 1732. Major Thomas Maclin and his wife Julia Edmonds had 9 children, but she and the last child died in 1818. Major Maclin afterward moved with several of the other children to Limestone County of Alabama, but by 1840 when Thomas Hubbard Hobbs began his journal (diary) only two of the Maclin children were still living. Those two were Rebecca Maclin and Dr. Benjamin Maclin.

Rebecca Maclin married Ira Edward Hobbs, of a family associated with the Maclins back in Virginia. The Hobbs were descendants of American Revolutionary War soldier Hubbard Hobbs and his wife Martha Meredith. After soldier Hubbard Hobbs died in 1817, Martha Hobbs came with her children and the Maclin family to Alabama. John, the oldest son of the Hobbs family, settled in Madison County and owned vast lands, including an island in the Tennessee River, still today called Hobbs Island. Meanwhile, Dr. David Hobbs with his brother Ira Hobbs and several sisters settled in Limestone County near Major Thomas Maclin and his daughter Rebecca, so soon afterward the marriage of Ira E. Hobbs and Rebecca Maclin occurred in the days when courting involved walking or taking horses over short distances during daytime hours. Marriages most often involved neighboring families.

Ira and Rebecca had only one child, Thomas Hubbard Hobbs, whose middle name was given to him in honor of his Revolutionary War maternal grandfather Hubbard Hobbs. Rebbecca came to fame in Limestone County as the “mother” of the Athens Methodist Church and as the Principal of the Female Academy, which has now become known as Athens State University. Her family deeded the land for the college, and her brother Dr. Benjamin Maclin was credited with being the largest single contributor to the initial building fund for what is now known as Founder’s Hall. Rebecca’s husband, Ira Hobbs, supervised work on the interior of the building. Portraits of the family were hung in the school library when that wing was added.

The first page and paragraph of Thomas Hubbard Hobbs’ journal began with the date of November 2, 1840 – again, when Thomas was only 14 years old. He noted that “The young ladies of the Female Academy visited us at the Institute today, viz., Misses Abernathy, Bass, Binford, and Keyes…. I was honored tonight with the presence of Miss Jane Keye, who was very interesting in conversation.” Immediately, I noticed the name Abernathy as being for pioneers of Madison County. The Bailey Cemetery near the county line has family graves for them. Sarah Catherine Abernathy was a daughter of Jesse and Sarah Bailey Abernathy. She was also a stepdaughter of David Blackburn, according to Limestone County records and my own research in Madison County records, Harriet Bass was a daughter of Thomas Bass, the proprietor of the Bass Hotel in Athens. That hotel stood on a site at the southeast corner of the courthouse square. It had been used from around 1810 as an early Indian trading post, when the area was still known as part of the Sims Settlement on Indian lands. Lucy Binford was a daughter of Addison Binford, a wealthy planter, She later married the prominent Dr. Thomas Brandon of Huntsville in 1842. The Brandon family was likely also closely connected to that of Gerard Brandon, the 4th and the 6th Governor of Mississippi, whose house was neighboring to my own childhood home very near Selma, Mississippi. I often stayed on weekends with my close childhood friends who lived in Brandon Hall. We attended school in Washington, which had been the Territorial Capitol before statehood for both Mississippi and Alabama.

Another of the visitors noted on November 2 of 1840 by Tom H. Hobbs was Miss Jane Keyes. Jane and Martha Keyes were daughters of George Keyes and granddaughters of Revolutionary War soldier Captain John Wade Keyes. This Keyes family remained close to Thomas H. Hobbs through all of his life. Jane married General John Rather, and Martha married Judge Henry C. Jones. Then the journal notes than on November 4 of 1840 Tom Hobbs “heard a political speech from Dr. Spottswood and a Mr. Sykes from Decatur.” (When I was 14 years old, nobody could get me to gladly go hear a political speech voluntarily, but Hobbs must have been really impressed to record such a thing in his journal as a special event…. JPR) Dr. John Spotts-wood was the first druggist in Athens, but he later moved to Huntsville, listed in the 1859 Huntsville City Directory as being located at 15 Commercial Row on the south side of the square. James Turner Spikes (who also gave a speech that day per the journal) was president of the Decatur branch of the Alabama State Bank and was Morgan County’s representative in the 1828 legislature.

This example text so far occupied about half of the first page of the Hobbs journal, but it shows that at such a young age Thomas was already interested in things normally associated with or attended by old men. However, the liberal attention to detail and names with dates was consistently done throughout the 54 pages of text in the journal. Only a few years were skipped, but the journal documents Tom Hobbs’ activities and thoughts throughout its pages. It also tells of his courtships and marriages to two women who became his wives. He had one child by his first wife, Indiana Elizabeth Booth, who he married in Richmond, VA., in 1852. She and their baby girl died in 1854 in Athens. He was crushed by the loss for years, but by February 1858 he remarried to Anne Benagh in Lynchburg, VA. They had two children: Thomas Maclin Hobbs born November 1858 and James Benagh Hobbs, born 1862.

Thomas Hubbard Hobbs was educated in three universities in Alabama, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. He became a lawyer, planter, and legislator at the state level. Perhaps his most significant accomplishment was to lobby for completion of a new north-south railroad to connect the state all along its length. His work was instrumental in getting the railroad from Decatur south to the village of Elyton, which became a part of the City of Birmingham today, initially booming due to the rail transportation of coal and then iron and steel. The railroad connection into that area enabled rise to the city of Birmingham today, so Hobbs had a primary influence on the growth of one of Alabama’s largest municipalities. Those same connections eventually gave rise to the town of Madison when the Memphis & Charleston Rail Road company laid tracks that needed a depot here for fuel and water replenishment for the locomotives along the tracks every 10 miles. In fact, Thomas Hubbard Hobbs wrote in his journal that he and his wife rode the very first train to run from Madison into Huntsville over the newly-laid construction tracks on October 18 of 1855. This was 1-1/2 years before James Clemens sold his first lot to create a town around the depot. The passenger train did not yet travel over that stretch of tracks, but he found that Mrs. Sophia Davis and her sister and Miss Corrine Acklen (daughter of William Acklen, Alabama state politician) were also on-board for the ride.

The 254-page journal with editorial additions and explanation notes includes events and contacts by Hobbs with hundreds of Madison County residents and officials of his days. It is very nearly as much a history of Madison, Jackson, Marshall, and Morgan Counties as it is of Limestone County. And of course, the journal has many mentions of events and acquaintances in the rest of this state and many other parts of America at the time. The name index contains perhaps thousands of names, requiring 11 pages of extremely small print. Moreover, the book as printed by the University of Alabama Press in 1976 has 6 pages of references to additional sources of related information. It is highly recommended to all who want to seek information about historical events (including the Mexican War) or old family connections and customs during the lifetime of Thomas Hubbard Hobbs.