Tebbs, Mrs.

Born in 1771 to William Carr and Mary Overall, Elizabeth Carr Tebbs, known sometimes as “Betty” or “Betsy,” grew up in a prominent family in Dumfries, Virginia. Although the Carr family lived in Prince William County, Elizabeth’s father, William, also had large land holdings in Fauquier County and Loudoun County. William Carr operated as an agent for the London-based merchant James Russell and had business connections with George Washington. When William died in 1791, his estate was valued at £4,675 and it was divided between his three children: William Jr., John, and Elizabeth. After her brother William Jr. died in 1817, Elizabeth Tebbs was the only surviving heir of William Carr Sr., since neither William nor John had children.

Elizabeth Tebbs married Willoughby Foushee Tebbs in 1786 and they had six children. Willoughby Tebbs Sr. was a quartermaster and second lieutenant in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. The Tebbses lived at Tebbsdale in Dumfries. After Willoughby died in 1803, it appears Elizabeth assumed his role in the Tebbs and Overall Company. It was not uncommon for widows to assume the managerial responsibilities of their deceased husbands, especially those that dealt with their children, enslaved people, and finances.

Elizabeth Tebbs had business dealings with John Overall stretching across several counties in northern Virginia. Considering that Tebbs’s mother’s maiden name was Overall, it is likely that John Overall and Tebbs were related—he was likely either her uncle or her cousin. Elizabeth Tebbs appears in the Mason family manuscript account book in 1815 along with Overall, who acted as her agent in the purchase of 910 pounds of tobacco from the Hugh Douglas estate. In the same year Tebbs and Overall appeared in the account book, Overall placed an advertisement in the Alexandria Gazette in Tebbs’s name for “Several Plantations in Prince William and Stafford County” that she had available for rent.

Overall’s role as Tebbs’s agent in both the Mason family manuscript account book and the Alexandria Gazette advertisement could be evidence that she was delegating the responsibilities she inherited from her husband, but it is also probable this was a continuation of how the Tebbs and Overall Company operated while her husband was alive. Overall may have simply lived in Loudoun or travelled there more frequently, while Tebbs spent most of her time in Dumfries.

According to census records, Mrs. Tebbs owned twenty-one enslaved people in 1810. In 1817, Mrs. Tebbs divided the land she inherited from her father, William Carr, between her six children. Mrs. Tebbs died in Fauquier County in 1852 and is buried near Willoughby Tebbs in the Tebbsdale cemetery in Dumfries.

By Duncan Crossan