Webb Chapel Road Has Long Family History

Webb Chapel Road Has Long Family History
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Webb Chapel Road has long family history
The Dallas Morning News - Sunday, January 30, 2000
Author: A.C. Greene

I have been asked about the proper spelling of a major thoroughfare in Dallas: Is it "Webb's Chapel Road" or " Webb Chapel Road" or "Webbs' Chapel Road?" All could be correct: The road was named for a Methodist church in Farmers Branch that was founded by Isaac B. Webb and his wife Mary Hughes Webb, so it could be thought of as "the Webbs' chapel," or "Webb's chapel," or "the Webb chapel ." Street and highway signs have used all three versions.

Reader Mary Margaret Webb Davis (Mrs. George F.) has sent interesting addenda to our recent Sketch about artist Jose Cisneros. In June 1995, when the 150th anniversary of the Webb Chapel United Methodist Church was celebrated, a ceremony honored the founders. And a specially commissioned portrait of Isaac Webb, by Mr. Cisneros, was presented to the church by a direct descendant of the founders.

Early in the 1840s, the William and Nancy Jane Hughes Cochran family and the Webbs came to the Dallas area and claimed land under the administration of the Texas Emigration and Land Co. (the Peters Colony). Isaac Webb had been to Texas to "test the soil" and, finding it good, returned to Missouri and came back with the Cochrans.

Isaac Webb kept a journal of that time. "Mrs. Cochran [Nancy Jane] was the first member of the Methodist Church that settled in North Texas and when I and my wife came, made 3 members of the Methodist Church . . . we 3 were the only ones that were present in the neighborhood [Farmers Branch]; all the rest of the men were Sunday hunters. When they would go a-hunting, I would call their families together and read, sing and pray and instruct them the best I could. I was determined to stick to my beloved Methodism."

Webb wrote to an old Tennessee friend, the Rev. J.W.P. McKenzie, founder of McKenzie College at Clarksville, asking for a preacher. A few weeks later, the Rev. Thomas Brown joined the settlement. He stayed at the Webbs' cabin but preached his first sermon in the colony on March 19, 1844, in the cabin of William and Nancy Jane Cochran. A year later, the Rev. Daniel Shook preached at the Webb cabin, from which Mary had cleared out the household goods and dedicated it "to the service of the Lord." This was the beginning of Webb's Chapel (the original spelling). That original location (the congregation moved in 1903) was near the present Webb Cemetery on the west side of Webb Chapel Road, just north of I-635. (Later, Nancy and William Cochran began Cochran Chapel Methodist Church, which still meets. The original Webb Chapel Road ran between the churches.)

A.C. Greene is an author and Texas historian who lives in Salado.