When Tennessee Virginia Cockrill was born on 12 January 1815, in Cornersville, Marshall, Tennessee, United States, her father, John W. Cockrill, was 33 and her mother, Elizabeth Bibb Harding, was 32. She married John D. Newell on 20 March 1832, in Mexico. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 4 daughters. She lived in Wharton, Texas, United States in 1850 and Fort Bend, Texas, United States in 1860. She died in April 1896, in Richmond, Fort Bend, Texas, United States, at the age of 81, and was buried in Morton Cemetery, Richmond, Fort Bend, Texas, United States.