Alabama Historical Commission marker: "Sarah (Birdwell) Isbell among first white settlers in Madison County, 1805." THE ALABAMA REVIEW, vol. 45 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992), p.276.

Sarah Birdwell Isbell was the daughter of John Birdwell and Mary Allen Birdwell who settled in 1805 in Madison County, Mississippi Territory, which became Alabama Territory in 1817 and the State of Alabama in 1819. She married Levi Isbell on Saturday, August 10, 1816, at Enon Baptist Church which then stood on the western bank of the Brier Fork of the Flint River, a few hundred yards north of the old terminal of the North Huntsville Executive Airport. This church is now known as the First Baptist Church of Huntsville. This is the marriage date in their son Elijah Miller Isbell's bible. The same bible lists her name twice as Sarah E. Birdwell.

Madison County Marriage Book Vol. 1, p.257: Levi Isbell to Sarah H. Burdwell, "3d day of August, 1816." Index says Aug. 30, 1816, but the license clearly says "3d day of August." Family bible gives marriage date Aug. 10, 1816.

1818, Aug. 18 - Madison Co., AL. John Birdwell and wife Mary deeded property to Geo. Oglethorpe Gilmer. Wit.: Lewis B. Taliaferro, Jacob Pruitt, Levi Isbell. (Deed Book E, page 133.)

Isbell Country by Odessa Morrow Isbell p.20 says: "W.J. Isbell, Jr. says her name was Sarah H. Birdwell. I have found no proof of the 'H'." In "The Isbells of Alabama" William Jesse Isbell Jr. repeats Odessa Isbell verbatim.
Madison County (Mississippi Territory) Marriage Book 1, p. p.253 clearly says: Levi Isbell and Sarah H. Burdwell. Her signature in 1860 also says Sarah H. Isbell:
Rusk Co. (Texas) Deed Book N-O (1860), p.367: "The State of Alabama/Dekalb County. Know all men by these presents that I, Sarah H. Isbell, wife of Levi Isbell, and formerly Sarah H. Birdwell, daughter of John Birdwell who died on the 16th day of February, 1854, or about that time, in Rusk County, State of Texas, do hereby designate, appoint and confirm John B. Isbell as my lawful attorney…. This 28th day of March A.D. 1860." (Witness A.W. Higgins, W.W. Findley)

First Families of Alabama (Levi Isbell, Certificate #457; John Birdwell, #430-432, 434)
First Families of Tennessee (George Birdwell, #15933)