c. 1325 — ✧ Medieval English lineage memory begins in northern England, preserved through reconstructed family tradition.

1385 — ✧ According to family tradition, Maud Percy marries John Neville of Raby, linking the remembered Percy–Neville lineage. The marriage itself is historically documented, though direct descent remains unproven.

1464 — ✚ Sir Ralph Percy dies at the Battle of Hedgeley Moor; later chroniclers associate him with the phrase, “I have saved the bird in my bosom.”

1500–1600 — ◐ The English Reformation reshapes religious authority, social order, literacy, parish identity, and oath culture throughout England.

1598 — ● Thomas Webster of Great Leighs, Essex, appears in parish tradition connected with “soundness in doctrine.”

1600–1650 — ◐ Oath enforcement, religious conformity, dissent, and civil instability shape the political culture of eastern England.

1640s — ✚ English Civil War-era oath refusals and dissent traditions become part of the reconstructed moral lineage later associated with migration into New England.

c. 1630 — ✧ John Kittredge is born in London and later becomes associated with the New England medical line.

1654 — ●▲ Thomas Webber takes the Oath of Fidelity to Plymouth authority near the Kennebec River, establishing verified colonial presence in northern New England.

1660 — ● John Kittredge appears in Billerica, Massachusetts town records.

1687 — ●◐ Mary Parker Webber petitions Governor Edmund Andros regarding land she possessed, improved, built upon, fenced, and defended through her own labor.

1689 — ● Dr. John Kittredge marries Hannah French, joining medical, literacy, civic-service, and colonial family lines.

1690 — ✚ John Bailey dies returning from the Canada Expedition.

1692 — ●◐ Mary Webber and her son Samuel appear in surviving Salem Witchcraft Papers as witnesses rather than accused persons.

1690s — ✧ Kittredge medical and healer traditions become increasingly documented in Billerica and surrounding Massachusetts communities.

1690–1750 — ✧ Healer, literacy, and civic-service traditions continue across interconnected Bailey, Rolfe, Morrill, Parker, Webber, and Kittredge family lines.

1730–1815 — ✧ Mary Ann Rolfe Bailey lives across the colonial and early national periods, bridging generations later associated with the Webber line.

1750–1795 — ✧ New England family lines consolidate through marriage, migration, labor, civic service, religious culture, and local community formation.

1755–1834 — ● Hannah Bailey Kittredge carries the Bailey–Rolfe–Kittredge inheritance forward into the Morrill and Webber family network.

1791 — ◐ Vermont enters the Union as the fourteenth U.S. state, shaping the political and geographic environment into which John Ferdinand Webber is later born.

1786 — ● Alternate genealogical reconstruction places the birth of John Ferdinand Webber in Danville, Vermont; later records more consistently support the 1794–1795 range.

August 18, 1792 — ● John Webber, father of John Ferdinand Webber, marries Hannah Morrill in Danville, Caledonia County, Vermont.

1794 — ● Anchor birth year for John Ferdinand Webber in some records; 1786 is preserved as an alternate.

1795 — ● Anchor birth year for John Ferdinand Webber in later family and historical reconstructions.

October 2, 1795 — ● John Ferdinand Webber is traditionally identified as born in Danville, Vermont, to John Webber and Hannah Morrill.

c. 1807 — ● Silvia Hector is born into slavery in Spanish West Florida, in the region later associated with present-day West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana.

1806–1815 — ▲ Members of the extended Cryer family migrate from Georgia into St. Helena Parish, then toward Arkansas and Missouri Territory.

May 23, 1810 — ✚ Mexico’s War of Independence begins, introducing antislavery ideology into the northern borderlands.

July 9, 1816 — ●◐ Probate inventory of Dr. Samuel Flowers documents forced familial separation under slavery. Sarah is listed and sold at a valuation of $650; Silvia, recorded as “Silva,” is inventoried separately at $350; and a male identified as Hector is listed at $100, demonstrating the legal and economic fragmentation of family under slavery.

March 10, 1819 — ●◐ Silvia, recorded as “Silva,” approximately age twelve, is sold to Morgan Cryer Sr. in Missouri Territory.

1819 — ◐ Adams–Onís Treaty establishes the U.S.–Spanish Texas border while slavery remains legal on both sides of the boundary.

1815–1820 — ●▲ John Ferdinand Webber migrates southwest toward the Texas borderlands.

1821 — ◐ Mexico gains independence from Spain; Texas becomes part of the new Mexican nation founded on formal antislavery principles.

1822 — ✧ Jared Groce brings approximately ninety enslaved people into Austin’s Colony, reflecting the tension between Mexican antislavery policy and Anglo colonization practices that continued to sustain slavery through legal exceptions.

1823 — ●▲ John Ferdinand Webber arrives in Mexican Texas and settles near San Felipe de Austin.

1823 — ◐ Mexico enacts the Imperial Colonization Law, permitting slavery through long-term indenture contracts.

1824 — ◐ The Mexican Federal Constitution avoids directly addressing slavery; Coahuila y Tejas continues tolerating the institution.

1825 — ◐ Census records of Austin’s Colony document 443 enslaved individuals, establishing the demographic and legal structure into which the Webber family emerges.

March 15, 1826 — ●◐ John Cryer appears in Austin’s Colony records with five enslaved persons, including Silvia Hector.

1826 — ●▲ John Ferdinand Webber settles near the Colorado River in Austin’s Colony.

c. 1826–1827 — ●▲ Silvia Hector is brought into Mexican Texas by John Cryer at approximately age nineteen.

1827 — ◐ Coahuila y Tejas bans further importation of enslaved persons and declares children born thereafter eligible for eventual freedom.

1827 — ●▲ Webber’s land and settlement presence emerge along the Colorado River.

1828 — ◐ Anglo settlers increasingly rely upon indenture contracts as a legal mechanism to preserve slavery under another name.

1829 — ◐ Mexican President Vicente Guerrero issues a nationwide abolition decree, though Texas receives temporary exemption status.

October 1829 — ● Alcy, also recorded as Elsie or Alecy Webber, is born to Silvia Hector and John Ferdinand Webber under the legal framework of slavery.

c. 1830 — ● Henry Webber is born to Silvia Hector and John Ferdinand Webber prior to Silvia Hector’s emancipation.

c. 1832 — ● John Webber Jr. is born to Silvia Hector and John Ferdinand Webber prior to Silvia Hector’s emancipation.

Early 1830s — ● John Ferdinand Webber and Silvia Hector establish a family while Silvia remains legally enslaved within the Cryer household, creating a legally constrained but socially real union.

June 22, 1832 — ●▲ John Ferdinand Webber receives a 2,214.2-acre headright land grant along the Colorado River through the Mexican land system.

1832 — ◐ Anglo-Texan settlers increasingly resist Mexican federal authority and demand restoration of federalist protections.

1832–1833 — ●▲ John Webber establishes a stockade and settlement that becomes known as Webber’s Prairie.

1834 — ◐ President Santa Anna centralizes power, destabilizing legal protections under the Mexican federal system.

June 11, 1834 — ●◐ Silvia Hector’s emancipation bond is sworn before Alcalde R. M. Williamson at San Felipe de Austin. John F. Webber stands as debtor; John Cryer stands as emancipator. The document legally frees Silvia Hector and her children under Mexican law, formally altering their legal status within the Mexican system.

October 1834 — ●◐ John Webber reportedly refuses demands that Silvia’s children be returned to the Cryer family, reinforcing the permanence of the family unit against external legal pressure.

Summer 1835 — ✚ Santa Anna deploys military forces into Texas to enforce centralist authority.

October 2, 1835 — ✚ The Battle of Gonzales marks the beginning of the Texas Revolution.

1835–1836 — ◐ Slaveholding settlers revolt against Mexico amid tensions over slavery, governance, and political authority.

1836 — ◐ The Republic of Texas declares independence and constitutionally protects slavery while outlawing interracial marriage.

1837 — ◐ Mexico reaffirms abolition and recognizes enslaved people reaching Mexican soil as legally free.

1837–1845 — ●▲ The Webber family lives at Webber’s Prairie under increasing racial hostility, surveillance, and political scrutiny because of their interracial household.

1839 — ●▲ Webber’s Prairie becomes an officially recognized settlement, later known as Webberville.

1840s — ● Robert G. McAdoo is reportedly employed to educate the Webber children following exclusion from local schooling systems.

1840s — ✧ Early escape networks develop, guiding freedom seekers south toward Mexico.

1840s — ● The Webber family expands into a large multiracial household, with eleven of thirteen children surviving infancy.

1840s–1850s — ✧ Increasing numbers of enslaved people flee Texas into Mexico, where abolition remains enforced.

1840s–1861 — ●✧ Webber’s Prairie and the Colorado River ferry become associated through descendant memory and regional recollection with aid to freedom seekers.

1845 — ◐ Texas is annexed into the United States as a slave state.

1846–1848 — ✚ The U.S.–Mexico War concludes with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, establishing the Rio Grande as the international border.

1850 — ●◐ U.S. Census records document the Webber family in Travis County as a multiracial household within a slaveholding state structure, while Texas’s enslaved population reaches 58,161.

1850 — ●◐ The Webbers forfeit portions of their Webberville property amid financial disputes connected to Cryer family claims.

1850–1853 — ◐ United States and Texas officials repeatedly pressure Mexico to return freedom seekers; Mexican authorities refuse.

1851 — ●▲ The Webber family begins relocating southward away from escalating racial hostility in Central Texas.

1852 — ✧ Seminole Maroons and Black freedom seekers receive land grants in northern Mexico, reinforcing the Rio Grande as a freedom corridor.

1853 — ●▲ The Webber family permanently relocates to the Rio Grande Valley.

June 8, 1853 — ●▲ John Ferdinand Webber acquires 8,856 acres in Hidalgo County.

1854 — ●▲ Webber Ranch and a family cemetery are established.

c. 1854–1855 — ●▲ A licensed ferry operation is established along the Rio Grande.

1850s — ●✧ Regional accounts and descendant memory associate the Webber ferry with freedom crossings into Mexico.

c. 1860 — ●✧ The Webbers associate with neighboring interracial Unionist family Nathaniel and Matilda Jackson.

1860 — ◐ Texas’s enslaved population reaches 182,566, making slavery central to the state economy.

1861 — ✚ Texas secedes from the Union and joins the Confederacy.

1861 — ●◐ The Webber family faces increased danger and persecution due to Unionist sympathies and associations with freedom seekers.

1861–1865 — ●✧ Webber Ranch serves as a refuge for Unionists, fugitives, and refugees moving toward Mexico.

January 1, 1863 — ◐ The Emancipation Proclamation is issued, though enforcement in Texas remains limited.

1863 — ✧ Reports describe freedom seekers crossing the Rio Grande concealed among cotton bales.

June 1864 — ●✚ Confederate authorities arrest Webber’s sons as Union sympathizers.

1863–1865 — ●▲ John and Silvia flee southward toward the Rio Grande and take refuge in Mexico during the Civil War.

April 9, 1865 — ✚ Confederate surrender concludes major Civil War operations.

May 1865 — ●▲ The Webber family returns to Texas following the collapse of Confederate authority.

June 19, 1865 — ◐ General Order No. 3 announces emancipation in Texas, now commemorated as Juneteenth.

September 1865 — ◐ The Freedmen’s Bureau begins operations in Texas.

1866 — ◐ Texas enacts Black Codes restricting the freedoms of formerly enslaved people.

March 1867 — ◐ Reconstruction Acts place Texas under federal military authority.

1867 — ●◐ Hidalgo County voter rolls list John Ferdinand Webber as a Unionist voter.

1868 — ✚ Ku Klux Klan violence escalates across Texas.

1870 — ◐ Texas is formally readmitted to the Union.

1870 — ●◐ U.S. Census records the Webber family in Hidalgo County following the Civil War, documenting their continued presence as a multiracial family during Reconstruction.

1871 — ◐ Matthew Gaines is elected to the Texas Senate during Reconstruction.

1872 — ●◐ John Ferdinand Webber’s War of 1812 pension is processed, providing federal financial support to Silvia Hector Webber and confirming his military service within official U.S. records.

1873–1874 — ◐ White supremacist “Redeemer” Democrats regain political control across Texas.

1877 — ◐ The Compromise of 1877 ends Reconstruction and accelerates the rise of Jim Crow systems.

1880 Census — ●◐ Silvia Hector Webber appears in federal records as the “wife” of John Ferdinand Webber; the family is documented across multiple dwellings, reflecting an extended multigenerational family compound structure with adult children maintaining separate but adjacent households.

1880–1965 — ◐ The story survives in fragments through oral memory, family recollection, scattered records, local references, archival gaps, and variant spellings such as Weber, Webb, and Wibber.

July 19, 1882 — ● John Ferdinand Webber dies near present-day Donna, Texas, and is buried in the Webber family cemetery.

September 13, 1892 — ● Silvia Hector Webber dies; remembered locally as “Aunt Puss,” with her grave remaining unmarked.

1899 — ◐ Noah Smithwick publishes The Evolution of a State, preserving one of the few contemporary written accounts of the Webber family.

Ongoing — ◐ Silvia Hector Webber’s emancipation bond is preserved at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.

1966 — ● The Fernsten Pedigree Chart reconnects branches of the Webber family lineage.

2000s–2020s — ● Digitized archives, census recovery, land records, and descendant research enable broader historical reconstruction.

2021 — ✧ Descendant-led preservation and oral history initiatives expand public engagement with the Webber legacy.

January 23, 2025 — ✧ Hungry for History with Eva Longoria highlights Silvia Hector Webber within the Underground Railroad to Mexico narrative.

March–May 2025 — ✧ The Plano African American Museum presents Risking It All For Freedom, co-curated with Webber descendants.

Ongoing 2020s — ✧ Descendant family members organize reunion and preservation initiatives in Webberville, Texas, historically known as Webber’s Prairie, marking a return to the original settlement site and continuation of intergenerational preservation and community restoration.

2025 — ● Descendants of the Hector-Webber family preserve the lineage through the companion historical works The Lineage of Wind and Stone and From Aldwinkle to the Rio Grande.