William Stevenson Dobbins
April 28, 1821 to January 25, 1847
As a
genealogist, I often run into people from the past who seem to have left very
few footprints to follow. They exist on
paper in a minimal way, and except for the genealogist, might very quickly move
past the "Immortal Nobody" category.
That is the
way I would describe William Stevenson Dobbins, born in Ohio in 1821, who was
the youngest child of Robert and Catherine Dobbins, the youngest brother of 7 siblings,
and eventually the husband of Sarah
Brand.
He did
nothing important enough to get written up in a county history book, although
if he hadn't died at the young age of 25, he might have distinguished himself
in some way. In fact, many researchers
have wondered if a William S. Dobbins was even a part of the family. He was not given any property by his father
like all the other children received; and he was not mentioned at all in the Session
Minutes of the Bennington Presbyterian church, whose membership list included
every member of the Dobbins family and whose pastor was his own father.
Some
researchers wondered if perhaps he was simple-minded, thus not in a position to
be treated like all other family members.
He was buried in the Dobbins Cemetery, but the stone was silent.
In my
research I found two important issues: In
an old Family Reunion paper dating from 1911, this story was handed down. " It was customary then to have wood cut for
Sunday use on Saturday by the boys. At
one time, when he was away on one of his long trips, the boys failed in this
duty. The father returned on Saturday
and sent his son Will out to chop the needed wood. He did not hear the axe, and went out to see
what was the trouble and overheard the following soliloquy: 'R. B. D.
Roaring Big Devil – this is a hell of a work.' To the boy’s astonishment, the father
appeared, saying, 'Tut, tut, tut. I’ll
teach you to take your father’s name in vain – to the woodshed we’ll go.'"
In all my research
done over the last 40 years on the Dobbins family, this is the only time
William was ever given a body and a personality, albeit one of a bratty teenager. In a county history book there is a single line
that said a William Dobbins married a Sarah Brand, but no documentation of that
fact in the county courthouse marriage records turned up.
William
remained an immortal nobody for a long time because another researcher and I,
both on the trail of this young man, failed to move on a probate file in the
county for what appeared to be a person by the name of William L. Dobbins, not
Willian S. Dobbins – in spite of the fact that sometimes old handwriting
"L"s and "S"s are confused with each other.
When I
finally decided to try one last time to either "rule in" or
"rule out" this man by taking this final step, I sent for, and
received, a William Dobbins' probate records.
One paper showed that his widow, Sarah Brand Dobbins, turned over her appointment
as executrix for her husband's estate to Robert B. Dobbins. And in this probate material it became
obvious that William's middle initial was "S" -- for Stevenson, his
grandmother Dobbins's maiden name – Elizabeth Stevenson Dobbins.
William is
truly an immortal nobody. He will not be
remembered for anything he did – except act like a brat and be so immortalized
in an unpublished family reunion paper and sent to me by a Dobbins still living
in Illinois. But he did acquire enough
worldly goods by farming the land that there was need for probating his estate
when he died at age 25.. He left a wife,
but no children. His tombstone is in the
Dobbins Cemetery (now the Clemens Cemetery) in Fulton County Illinois.
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