Webster J. Colburn and bride Ada Elizabeth Brabson
Major Webster James Colburn
Webster J. Colburn
Major Webster James Colburn built a fine home "on the north side of Sixth Street 2 east of Cedar" not long after the Yellow Fever plague had finally left the town. The Colburns lived for many years at this 409 W. Sixth St. address.
A New York native, Colburn had first seen Chattanooga during the Civil War. He was among the officers on Orchard Knob at the time of the dramatic Union charge up Missionary Ridge. Earlier, Major Colburn had organized a supply train for the artillery reserve. He had the soldiers go to the mouth of Chickamauga Creek to aid to troops of General William T. Sherman in crossing the creek.
At the very end of the war, Colburn was assigned at Memphis as quartermaster of the Western District of Tennessee. When he was honorably discharged in June 1866 he went directly to Washington and closed his accounts with the government, being the first disbursing officer of the Army of the Cumberland to do so.
Colburn described what Cameron Hill looked like when he arrived in town in September 1963, and its condition after the ravages of the conflict. "The beautiful forest trees, which were so plentiful that they mostly concealed the town and covered the sides of Cameron Hill to its very top, making it look like a pyramid of green when we first saw it - all these great oaks had disappeared and vanished in the smoke of army fuel. The earth had been trampled by the marching hosts and ponderous moving trains until all the evidence of verdure had passed away. Fences no longer marked the enclosures of quiet homes. Each knoll, each hill, bore upon its top a fort, from which peered the black or brazen cannon."
After the war, Major Colburn had stayed on and was among the Union officers who was solicitous to the beautiful widow of Congressman Reese Brabson, who died just before the war. Mayor Colburn turned his attention to the young daughter of Mrs. Brabson, Ada Elizabeth. Indeed, he asked for her hand though she was only 14 years old at the time. The startled Mrs. Brabson sent her daughter away to a finishing school in Philadelphia. But soon after she returned, she and Mayor Colburn were married. Briefly they lived at Fourth and High before their new home on the side of Cameron Hill was completed.
Major Colburn was among the handful of men who met following a disastrous fire in November 1871 to organize the Lookout Volunteer Fire Company. The crewmen were known simply as "The Lookouts."
Colburn went into the insurance business in Chattanooga in April of 1867 after operating an office for a brief time in Memphis. He was the first person in Chattanooga to to open an office devoted entirely to insurance. His first Chattanooga business location was in the old government warehouse on the west side of Market Street between Seventh and Eighth streets. He then moved to a one-story brick building adjacent to the Sims and Hamilton Block directly across Market Street. When the new James Hall was built at Sixth and Market, he moved there. Major Colburn was the president of the Board of Fire Underwriters. He also served as president of the Chickamauga Park Commission.
The Colburns remained in town during the cholera epidemic of 1873, but he removed his family during the Yellow Fever five years later.
Major Colburn was the principal agent who was able to rid Chattanooga of the ruinous scrip that the city government began printing in the turbulent days after the Civil War. On his own, he filed a lawsuit that was upheld by the state Supreme Court and resulted in the city having to go on a cash basis.
The Colburn children who were raised on Cameron Hill were Thomas Brabson who married Elizabeth Carswell; Maria Henrietta who married James Nayler of Sherman, Tex.; Catherine Keith who married the real estate man C. Victor Brown; Webster who married Leila Llewellyn; Rose Louise who married John D. Clayton; Etta Whitney who married A.B. Carlisle; Albert Scott and Charles Story who married Ida Callaway. Charles Colburn went into the insurance business with his father. Another daughter, Mary Older, married Henry Augustus Kropp, who was the general auditor for the Southern Express Company. They were married April 23, 1896, in Chattanooga and later lived in Ohio and Arkansas.
W.J. Colburn died Dec. 13, 1918. In later years, the spacious Colburn home was converted to eight units for the Overman Apartments.
A photo of the Colburn house, which was knocked down by Urban Renewal, has not been found.