Obituary for Judge Howell Cobb was published in the "Macon Daily Telegraph" (Macon, Georgia) on Friday, Aug 20, 1909 on page 1.
"Judge Howell Cobb Claimed by Death; An Eventful Career – Distinguished Georgian Stricken by Paralysis More Than Three Months Ago.- For Thirty Years City Court Judge – Lawyer of Great Ability-For Many Years Trustee of State University –
Athens, GA., Aug. 19 - Judge Howell Cobb, who was stricken with paralysis three months since, died this afternoon at half past four o'clock. The funeral will be held tomorrow afternoon at half past ___o'clock in the University of Georgia ___, where the funeral of his father was held in 1868. The death of Judge Cobb is universally mourned in the city where he was one of the foremost citizens.
Howell Cobb was the son of General Howell Cobb and Mary Ann Lamar Cobb. He was born in July, 1942, and had just passed his sixty-seventh birthday. In his youth he attended the University of Georgia and was in college when the war broke out. He was a college mate of Senator A.O. Bacon and other Georgians who have since become distinguished. He served a while as a private in the Troup artillery and later on became a member of the staff of his father and was attached to the Sixteenth Georgia. Just after the close of the war, it became known that the government contemplated a rule forbidding the issuing of marriage licenses except to those who had taken the oath of allegiance. Young Cobb at the time did not feel like taking the oath and he gained the consent of his affiance bride, Miss Mary McKinley, of Milledgeville, to advance the date of their wedding. He was married in his Confederate uniform and according to his wishes will be buried in his old suit of gray in which he served the south.
In 1866 he was admitted to the bar and practiced his profession with success until 1879, when he was appointed judge of the city court of Athens when that court was established. For thirty years he has filled that position, being the only judge of that court.
Judge Cobb has for years been a member of the board of trustees of the university and was recently reappointed by Gowen. He was for a number of years member of the faculty of the university law school resigning this year on account of ill health. He was once a member of the city council of Athens and at one time was city attorney. He was possessed of a great mind, and of a lofty character and was universally beloved. He was for a quarter of a century an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
Judge Cobb is survived by his wife and children, Mr. William McKinley Cobb, of Washington, D.C.; Col. Zach Lamar Cobb and Mr. Howell Cobb, of El Paso, Texas., Carlyle Cobb, of Athens; Mrs. Sarah Cobb Baxter and Miss Carolyn Cobb of this city."