An American Family History

William Cobb was born in 1732 in Isle of Wight County, Virginia and died in 1803 in Knox County, Tennessee. He was a son of Benjamin Cobb.

He married his cousin, Barsheba Whitehead.

William and Barsheba's children included:
William Cobb, Jr. (1754, married Martha Boone),
Pharoah Cobb (born 1752),
Penelope Cobb (born 1761, married Henry Massengill), and
Tabitha Cobb (1768, married Soloman Massengill).

He built a nine room, two story "comodious" log house which he called Rocky Mount, because of the many outcroppings of beautiful linestone rocks. In 1776/1777, when a stage road was built from Abingdon, Virginia, to Jonesborough, North Carolina (now Tennessee), it ran in front of Rocky Mount, which became a stop on the route. One of their frequent guests was Andrew Jackson, who was a relative of Barsheba's. The house was used by Governor Blount in 1790 as the capitol of the territory south of the Ohio River.

William Deery, said

Mr. Cobb was a wealthy farmer, and emigrant from N.C., no stranger to comfort and taste nor unaccustomed to what, for the day, was style. Like Old Virginia and Carolina gentlemen, he entertained elegantly with profusion rather than plenty. Like them, his house was plain, convenient, with pretensions or show.

He was one of the twenty-seven original magistrates appointed for Washington County. He was a member of the first Washington County Court where the court appointed him as a tax assessor.

In 1780 he was one of the Judges and Viewers of Currency of the Realm.

The Kings Mountain soldiers met at William Cobb's home.