Cobb family.

Collier Cobb, geologist and professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., was born 21 March 1862 at Mount Auburn Plantation in Wayne County, N.C. He was the eldest of the seven children of Martha Louisa Cobb and Needham Bryan Cobb, a minister. He received schooling at home until attending Wake Forest College, 1878-1880. He attended the University of North Carolina briefly in 1880. From 1871 to 1875, he printed a small newspaper, The Home Journal, on his own press. In 1879, he completed his School Map of North Carolina, which was adopted by the State Board of Education and went through six editions. From 1880 until 1886, he taught school, first at Locke Craig's Preparatory School in Chapel Hill in 1880, then in Durham in 1881, Waynesville in 1882, and finally in Wilson at the Wilson Graded School, 1883-1886. During the summer of 1885, Cobb studied at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Annisquan, Mass.

From 1886 until 1889, Cobb attended Harvard University, where he studied geology. From 1886 to 1892, he worked as an assistant on the United States Geological Survey. After receiving his degree from Harvard, he tutored and lectured part-time at MIT and Boston University until 1892, when he returned to Chapel Hill to become assistant professor of geology at the University of North Carolina. He eventually became head of the Geology Department, retiring in 1933. Besides teaching at the University, Cobb was also involved in community activities, especially those relating to schools.

In January of 1891, Collier Cobb married Mary Lindsay Battle of Lilesville, N.C. They had three children: William Cobb, born in 1891; Collier Cobb Jr., born in 1893; and Mary Louisa Cobb, born in 1899. Mary Battle Cobb died in November of 1900. In 1904, Collier Cobb married Lucy Battle, a Mary's cousin. Lucy Battle died in 1905. In 1910, Cobb married Mary Knox Gatlin of Little Rock, Ark.

Collier Cobb's sister, Lucy M. Cobb, was a writer, an avid genealogist and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. During the 1940s through the 1960s, she worked as a genealogist for hire, doing research on family histories.

Collier Cobb's daughter, Mary Louisa Cobb, was chief of the Correspondence Bureau of the UNC Extension Division from 1922 until 1954. From 1954 until her retirement in 1960, she served the Bureau as a part-time associate head.

For more information about the Cobb family, see Cobb and the Cobbs by Lucy M. Cobb or The Battle Book by Herbert B. Battle.

From the guide to the Cobb Family Papers, 1792-1975, (bulk 1874-1975), (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)