Catherine Tabler Watlington (1790-1865)
and Tablers in West Tennessee

 When George W. Watlington came to West Tennessee, my grandfather said that he went from Knox Co., Tennessee, first to Alabama, then to West Tennessee where he was during the Henderson Co. census in 1830. His last record in Knox Co., Tenn. was in 1829. Through searching for Catherine Tabler's family we have new clues as to where he may have gone in Alabama.

Families often migrated with relatives or close neighbors for security and community reasons. The Watlingtons, Tablers, Harrises and McCorkles who were early settlers in Henderson and Madison Counties were all related by marriage, though some are believed to have come from South Carolina and others from East Tennessee or Alabama.

Catherine Tabler (Dobler in German) was the daughter of John Michael Tabler (1761-1841) of Berks Co., Penn. and Frederick Co., Maryland, where he married (2) Anna Maria Roberts (ca. 1770-ca. 1840). Her paternal grandparents were John Melchior Tabler (1725-1804) and Catherine Elizabeth Dorhn (Dorin) of Frederick Co., Maryland. Melchior had accompanied his parents (Lehnhardt and Anna Maria) to America in 1732 on the ship Samuel as a minor child. They were Lutherans of a Palatine ``Free'' state in Germany, and sailed from Rotterdam.       

Catherine and George W. Watlington were married in Knox Co., Tenn., July 4, 1814, and lived there until 1828, where several of their children were born. Among her siblings were:   

• John Tabler, who married Isabell Lowery in 1825 in Alabama, and was in Henderson Co., Tenn., in 1830 census;  
• Adam Tabler, who is believed to have been in Hardin Co., Tenn. in 1830;  
• Charlotte Tabler (b. ca. 1801) who married Meredith Harris in 1818 in Knox Co., Tenn. and was in Henderson Co., Tenn. in 1840. She is believed to have m. (2) Sampson Edwards and had children in both marriages;   
• Alfred Newton Tabler, M.D., (1806-1859) a younger brother who was born in Jefferson Co., Tenn., Jan. 16, 1806 and died in Henderson Co., Tenn., May 30, 1859. He is remembered as one of the early physicians in Henderson Co., Tenn. He was in Huntsville, Alabama prior to 1830 and in Henderson Co., Tenn. in 1840. In the meantime he found and married Joanna White McCorkle on May 10, 1837. His daughters married Hardeman, McCully, McDougall, and McGee.    

Thus we see that of the nine children of John Michael Tabler, five of them came to West Tennessee. They married Harrises, McCorkles, Lowerys and Watlingtons and though there were no male descendents past 1911, the family is still well represented in our West Tennessee population.

We believe that Catherine's father, John Michael, moved to Madison Co., Alabama, near Huntsville in the late 1820's. We know that his son William lived there and that Catherine's father, John Michael, died there at the home of William on May 16th, 1841. William later moved to Marshall Co., Alabama, where he lived in 1870. It is more than likely that these other Tablers may have spent some months if not years in Madison Co., Alabama, on their way to West Tennessee in the newly opened Chickasaw Purchase.    

Mrs. Polly Phillips of Knoxville, Tenn. is a Tabler descendent also and has provided us with much of this valuable information. 

-- Copied Feb. 1989

All these were honored in their generations, and were the pride of their times.

Some of them have left behind a name, so that others declare their praise.

But of others there is no memory, they have perished as though they had never existed; they have become as though they had never been born, they and their children after them.

Sirach 44:7-9

We are the children of many sires, and every drop of blood in us in its turn betrays its ancestor.

-- anonymous