Another Dobbs Celebrity

The chart of Dobbs's I sent you yesterday will help you understand this picture.

C.E.W. Dobbs, the Baptist Minister, and his wife, Mary Elizabeth Barrett, had their first son in 1861. CEW was 21 years old and Mary was 19! The Civil War had just begun. They named their first child Willoughby Barrett Dobbs. Willoughby was the maiden name of Kedar's wife and Barrett was the maiden name of CEW's wife. It seems exceptionally egalitarian to me and perhaps I should have named my kids Adrienne Harms Dobbs Oakley and Allison Wastaferro Dobbs Oakley...but too late for that now!

Mary Elizabeth Barrett's mother was Mary Anne Foster. The Foster family was fun loving and had some great musicians amongst its members. The Foster's were also a long standing ship building and ocean vessel piloting family and made many trips across the ocean bringing new settlers and who knows what else to the new colonies!!!

Since CEW was a Baptist Minister and pastored many churches, I'm sure Mary did her share of organ playing and singing. CEW is reputed to be a great orator and educator and we can only imagine that he may have had some good stage presence!

Willoughby grew up to be a teacher, then a newspaper man, and then a lawyer. He hooked up with Theodore Roosevelt somewhere along the line and together they organized the New York City Police Department. Willoughby wrote the civil service rules and regulations and composed the entrance exam. During my recent trip to New York, I discovered a newspaper article about this exam. After Willoughby composed it, it had to be printed and this required that other people handle it. Somewhere along this pipeline, from creation to printing and back to the civil service department of the police, it was being sabotaged. Unqualified people were paying big bucks for a copy of the test so that they could study it before hand to assure their success. Willoughby was heavily involved in the investigation and the outcome of this investigation is still buried somewhere in New York. I'll leave that question for future Dobbs's to discover!

Anyway, Willoughby was quite a man! His first son, Hugh Barrett Dobbs, became Captain Dobbsie of the Ship of Joy. The story is online for those of you who haven't been subject to my long winding stories about it. Hugh married Alma Hemrich, an heiress to a Seattle Slaughterhouse fortune. They had two children, Barrett W. Dobbs and Carolyn M. Dobbs.

In order to get to the mystery of the picture, I will leave Barrett for another day. Carolyn was a debutante and a dancer and performer as evidenced by the articles in the social pages of the Los Angeles newspapers I have found online. She married a man named Jack Ray and they settled in California. Since this is all really new information for me, I don't know much about Jack Ray or their life in California.

I found out that they had two daughters. Carol Lynne Ray was born in 1941 and Jacquelyn M Ray was born in 1945.

Jacquelyn grew up to be a model and an actress and appeared on several magazine covers according to Gordon Willoughby Simpson, her mother's first cousin with whom I spoke. In 1971, she actually married the guy that she's standing with in the picture. He's hard to recognize without his mustache.

Who is it you say??? The star of Magnum P.I.???


Tom Selleck.


Jacquelyn and Tom were married all during the time he was a struggling young actor! She was also struggling to have some sort of career. All that struggling broke up their 12 year marriage and they divorced in 1982. They separated 6 months before he got his big signed contract for Magnum P.I.

Jacquelyn had a son, Kevin, by her first marriage. He was born in 1966. Tom adopted him and he goes by the name Kevin Selleck. Kevin is married and has 5 children who Tom considers to be his grandchildren. They call him "Hoppey" because Tom called his grandfather that name.

Since I am looking for all descendants of Kedar Dobbs, these 5 kids qualify! I haven't been able to find them yet. I don't have Kevin's wife's name or the children's names. This is another genealogy puzzle to solve! Anybody up for the task out there in Dobbsville???

Know your Dobbs's: A brief outline of our lineage.

Generation 1.

Kedar Dobbs married Mary Willoughby. They had three children, but I can only find two. Willoughby Dobbs born in 1782 and Nancy Dobbs born in 1789.

Generation 2.

Willoughby Dobbs married Rachel Edmonds in 1805. He served in the War of 1812 and died fairly young. They had at least two boys and four girls, maybe more. I can only find two boys...William Drewery Dobbs born in 1816 and Joseph Edward Dobbs born about 1818.

Generation 3.

William Drewery Dobbs married Martha Anne Leslie. He was a carpenter and built houses. They had ten children, 5 boys and 5 girls. All of us on the mailing list are descendants of Rev. C.E.W. Dobbs born in 1840. His initials stand for Charles Edwin Willoughby. These names have been passed down through the present day.

The other children were Ann Eliza 1842, William W. 1844, Martha Ann 1845, George H. 1847, Virginia 1854, Mary 1852, Elizabeth 1857, Claudius E. 1858, and Joseph E. 1862. William and Virginia died in the yellow fever epidemic that hit Portsmouth, VA in 1855.

Generation 4.

C.E.W. Dobbs married Mary Elizabeth Barrett in Portsmouth, VA. He was only 19 when he was involved in John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry as a member of the "National Grays" a Virginia Militia. He was already married to Mary in 1859 when CEW was captured and later released into her custody as long as he promised not to write or speak against the Union. I have the letter that was sent to her from a Union Army Field Office that was retrieved from Charles Dobbs' Estate (his son). Later, he became a very well known Baptist Minister and was the Pastor in several locations - Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina. Mary was very young when they married...only 17. She had babies from 1861 to 1877. She died in 1884 of uterine cancer at the age of 43.

Their children were Willoughby Barrett 1861, Leslie Edwin 1864, Gilbert 1867,
Martha Ann 1870, Charles 1871, Ann Elizabeth 1874, John Dobbs 1877. Martha and John died in childhood from illnesses. Ann never married.

C.E.W. married Florence Hull about 1886. They had one son, Clarence Hull Dobbs, who became a physician in the military and died in the 1918 flu epidemic at age 30. He never married.

Generation 5.

• Willoughby Barrett Dobbs married Mary Ready Ragland in 1884. He was a New York Lawyer and friends with President Theodore Roosevelt. They had 8 children. Hugh Barrett 1885, Paul W. 1887, Carl 1889, Mary Ruth 1892, Willoughby Barrett JR 1896, Theodore Roosevelt 1900, Margaret 1901, and Elizabeth 1903.
• Leslie Edwin Dobbs married Nettie Hurlbut in 1885. They had three children. Helen 1887, Florence 1890, Gilbert 1891. Nettie died at age 29 in 1894. He married Lola Buchanan in 1896 and they had four children. Charles 1898, Edna 1900, Leslie Jr. 1907, John Jasper in 1908.
• Gilbert Dobbs married Eula Jones in 1892. They had two children, Esther 1893 and Nelson Barrett in 1907.
• Charles Dobbs married Katharine Whipple in 1895. They had one son. George Whipple Jr, 1896. They divorced and he married Clara Landolt in 1913 and had no children with her.
  
  Keep this list for future reference. There is a fascinating story that goes along with each of our ancestors and I know you will want to refresh your memories about where they belong in space and time! Generation 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 will be issued a little at a time since our line has grown exponentially as expected. Please feel free to add to this blog with any information you have.

Kedar is an Unusual Name

Has anyone ever heard of the name Kedar? His army payroll records spell it many different ways...Kadar, Cato, Keader, Cader. Apparently, he couldn't spell it and it was left up to the writer to figure it out.

When I arrived home from my Virginia trip, I googled on the word Kedar and discovered quite a lot! Kedar was the second son of Ishmael and the surname of an important tribe of nomads of Arabian origin. They lived near Mt. Gilead in Jordan.

This part is interesting...in the 1740 Census of Virginia, I found a Gillead Dobbs. Could this be Kedar's father? It is much to coincidental that there would be two very unusual biblical names that are significant to each other in Norfolk, VA!

In the past, our genealogist cousins who preceded us in this task tried to tie Kedar into the Arthur Dobbs clan of North Carolina. Was he the illegitimate son of Arthur? Was he the son of the Reverend Doctor Richard Dobbs, Arthur's brother? Who was his mother??? Nobody could figure it out.

Kedar could have been just another hard working, but talented peasant, from the Dobbs clan that was imported by Arthur Dobbs to fill up his colony. From examining census records, I know that many of them were carpenters and built houses and ships. In 1740, many workers moved to Norfolk to help build an infrastructure. It was a boom time for building and my bet is that the Dobbs clan were right there with their hammers, nails, and artfully designed architectural plans, but tragedy was to follow in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 when most of the town was destroyed along with our precious genealogy records in the fires that were intentionally set by the British.

This skill for designing and building things has made it's way through the generations. Many of you have reported that it has spontaneously erupted in you or your children. I'm pretty good with a saw and hammer myself, although I prefer designing something and delegating the physical work to my husband.

Welcome Kedar Dobbs Descendants

During the last several years, I have been on an exciting genealogy quest to find all descendants of Kedar Dobbs, our Revolutionary War Soldier Ancestor. He was born in Norfolk, VA in 1748 and died in 1816. He married Mary Willoughby after he came back from his three year stint in the Virginia Regiments of the Continental Army. He enlisted in November of 1776 and mustered out in November of 1779...and it's a good thing that he did. During my recent genealogy hunt in Virginia (Richmond, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, St. Bride's Parish) I discovered that in 1780, Kedar's regiment went to Charleston, S.C. where it was wiped out!!! If Kedar had re-upped, there would be several hundred of us Dobbs cousins who wouldn't be trying to find each other now.

Kedar was given a Land Grant Certificate for his service in the war. I found a copy of it in the Library of Virginia. His Military Certificate Number for this land grant was LO6054. On the back it is signed with his mark that looks like a plus sign with a right loop at the top of the vertical line. He didn't claim this grant until 1812 and did so with the help of some attorneys who represented him. Kedar's records are together with those of Timothy Wood, certificate LO7661. Timothy was from Massachusetts and this was a big mystery to solve. Apparently, sometime during their war service, they met up. Through a vigorous search, I found out that both of their regiments fought in New Jersey. Did Timothy sign over his certificate to Kedar? Why? Each grant was for 200 acres and I discovered that they were worth $1.25 an acre! Since Kedar couldn't write, this story was probably handed down orally and lost somewhere in Virginia in the 19th century.