Pedigo Family Cemetery
Woodville, Tyler County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Abram (Abel) B. and Julia Pedigo came to Texas in 1857. With their eleven children, they established a plantation near this site in the 1880s. In addition to farming, the family operated a grist mill, cotton gin, and sugar mill. The Pedigos' daughter Cordelia and her husband, Sid McCarthy, lived in nearby Hardin County. Soon after Cordelia gave birth to twin daughters in 1883, one child and Cordelia died on May 24. They were brought back to the family farm for burial, thus beginning the Pedigo family cemetery. The surviving twin was left to be reared by her grandparents. When Sid McCarthy died three years later he was interred here next to his wife and child. All but one of A. B. and Julia Pedigo's children are buried in the family graveyard. After A. B. died in 1906 his son, Jack Hamilton, inherited the plantation and later formally set aside the cemetery in county deed records. He donated additional land to increase the size of the burial ground in 1939. A native rock chapel, built in the cemetery by A. B. and Julia's children, was dedicated to these area pioneers in 1938.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Abram and Julia Pedigo came to Texas in 1857 and, with their eleven children, established a plantation near this site in the 1880s, running a grist mill, cotton gin, and sugar mill alongside their farming. The family cemetery began in sorrow in 1883, when their daughter Cordelia and one of her newborn twins died and were brought home for burial. Nearly all the Pedigo children came to rest here, and a native-rock chapel raised by the family was dedicated to these pioneers in 1938.
Why it matters
The Pedigo cemetery and its chapel preserve the story of a self-sufficient East Texas farming family whose mills and fields helped build the rural economy of the era.
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Related people
- · Abram B. Pedigo
- · Julia Pedigo
- · Cordelia McCarthy
Themes & tags
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