William R. Webb

William R. Webb

William Robert Webb (born November 11, 1842 in Person County , North Carolina , †  December 19, 1926 in Bell Buckle , Tennessee ) was an American educator and politician ( Democratic Party ) who briefly represented the state of Tennessee in the US Senate .

Life

William Webb was the grandson of Richard Stanford , who served in the United States House of Representatives for North Carolina from 1797 to 1816 . His father Alexander Webb died when young William was six years old. He was educated in private schools, including the Bingham School at Oaks , and enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1860 . He interrupted his studies but rapidly, to the outbreak of the Civil War in the Army of the Confederacy to serve. As a member of the 15th  Infantry Regiment from North Carolina, he was seriously wounded on July 1, 1862 in the Battle of Malvern Hill . After he recovered, he initially resumed his studies, but returned to the army in the spring of 1864 and soon rose to become captain . After the battle of Namozine Church on April 3, 1865, he was captured and initially imprisoned on Long Island ; later he was transferred to a prison in southern Manhattan , from which he was able to escape for a day in June of the same year.

After the war ended, Webb returned to Chapel Hill University, where he graduated in 1868. Subsequently he worked as a teacher at a private school in Oxford (North Carolina) until 1870 . This year, he moved to Tennessee and founded in the small town of Culleoka the Webb School , a preparatory school in the study ( Preparatory School ). When Culleoka was granted town charter in 1886 and allowed to sell alcohol there, Webb, who was a proponent of Prohibition , moved his school to Bell Buckle, Bedford County , where it still exists today.

Webb married Emma Clary in 1873, with whom he had eight children. The eldest son, Will, later succeeded him as director of the Webb School ; Thompson Webb, the youngest son, went to California and opened a separate branch of his father's school in Claremont .

After the death of US Senator Robert Love Taylor , whose seat was initially occupied by John K. Shields , William Webb was elected by the Tennessee General Assembly as his successor in Washington, DC . He was the last former Confederate soldier to serve in the Senate and remained there from January 24, 1913 to March 3 of the same year. During that short time, he gave a speech in plenary in which he advocated a law banning the transportation of alcohol between states. He then returned to Bell Buckle and ran his school there until his death on December 19, 1926.

Web links

• William R. Webb in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• William R. Webb in the database of Find a Grave (English)