A NEW ENGLAND YANKEE IN KING SANTA ANNA'S COURT

By Juan Montoya
When I used to work for Cameron County's Road and Bridge Precinct No. 1, we used to tease foreman Joe Cuellar because he had blue eyes. Of course, everyone called him "El Borrado," because of his colored eyes, somewhat of a rarity in short, dark people like Joe.
Now we find out that Cuellar, like a few other South Texas residents is part of the region's living history.

During a genealogy search, his children found out that they were descendants of a Vermont Yankee named John Ferdinand Webber who came to Texas with Moses Austin's colony in 1826.

Webber was born in 1876 (?) in Danvaille, Vt., and served as a private in Capt. S. Dickinson's company, Thirty-first United States Infantry from May 13, 1813 to May 31, 1814 and fought in the Battle of Shadage Woods.

A genealogy website (Geni) confirms a Texas Online account of this unusual (and progressive) historical character.

He served in the War of 1812 as a medical technician. In 1832, Webber settled in Wells Prairie on the Colorado River sixteen miles below present Austin. He built a fort as protection against Indians, which developed into the village of Webberville.

Webber bought Silvia (hector), slave of a neighbor, freed and married her. He provided private tutors for his eleven children (another was born later). Seeking tolerance for his biracial family, he moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 1851.

In 1853, he purchased 8,856 acres in Agostadero del Gato Land Grant for his Webber Ranch and other property in La Blanca Grant. As a Yankee, he supported the Union cause, and moved the family to Mexico during the Civil War.

However, when he returned from Mexico in May 1865, he started receiving a small pension from the United States in 1872. 

Webber sold the northern half of his ranch to Edward Dougherty in 1877.

His other tracts, about 4,000 acres, were gradually broken up until his death on July 19, 1882. He bequeathed each of his children 34.5 acres; his daughter Marcella received the family cemetery in her share. That cemetery on the levee road, a short distance above the Donna, Texas pump, still exists. His widow died in September 1892.  His heirs sold most of his property to Alamo Land & Sugar Company by 1918.

Much of it has been recombined and is now part of Krenmiller Farms of San Juan.

Cuellar said he and his family were always curious about their ancestor and his wife and are seeking more information on Sylvia Hector, the slave woman who married Webber. Some of his family still lives in the Donna area on land originally acquired by Webber.

If you can help them to trace the origin of Sylvia to her reported Louisiana birthplace, please email your information to rrunrrun@gmail.com