Pitts Cemetery
San Marcos, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
John Drayton Pitts was born at sea on August 26, 1798, during the voyage of his parents, John and Jane Pitts, from England to Charleston, South Carolina. They moved to Georgia during the War of 1812, and John D. married Eliza Permelia Daves in April 1819. John D. Pitts was elected to the Georgia Legislature in 1841, but later moved to Grimes County, Texas. He persuaded his extended family in Georgia to join him, and in 1843 eleven Pitts families moved to Texas. John D. Pitts served as adjutant general under Texas Governor George Wood from 1848 to 1849. Pitts bought land here from his friend General Edward Burleson in 1850, and eventually much of his extended family settled along the nearby San Antonio-San Marcos stage route in a community called Stringtown. Pitts Cemetery began in 1850 with the burial of John Malone, infant son of James L. and Eliza (Pitts) Malone and grandson of Eliza and John D. Pitts. Eliza Pitts was buried here in 1851. In 1861 John D. Pitts died on his way home from a secessionist convention in Austin, and was buried here. The cemetery was set aside by Pitts' sons-in-law, James Malone and Samuel Kone, Sr., in 1875. The cemetery continues to serve as a burial site for the descendants of John D. and Eliza Pitts. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John Drayton Pitts was born at sea in 1798 as his parents sailed from England to Charleston, and after a public career that included the Georgia Legislature he moved west, persuading eleven Pitts families to follow him to Texas in 1843. He served as adjutant general of the young state and in 1850 bought land here from his friend Gen. Edward Burleson, settling his kin along the San Antonio–San Marcos stage route in a community called Stringtown. The cemetery began that same year with the burial of an infant grandson, and Pitts himself was laid here in 1861 after dying on his way home from a secession convention.
Why it matters
The Pitts family's mass migration and this cemetery show how extended kin networks transplanted whole communities from the older South into central Texas, planting deep roots along the frontier stage roads.
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Related people
- · John Drayton Pitts
- · Edward Burleson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Stringtown
San Marcos, TX
John Drayton Pitts, a civil engineer and Georgia legislator, visited Texas in 1842 and later bought 640 acres near San Marcos from General Edward Burleson, land the general had gained after the Battle of San Jacinto. The colony Pitts founded in 1847 drew family and friends who built farmhouses strung at half-mile intervals along the Austin–San Antonio Road, earning the settlement the name Stringtown. Its "model farms" survived early drought, and after emancipation crops were shared with former slaves given land, while Mexican farmers arrived to work the fields and enrich the area's culture.
San Pedro Cemetery
San Marcos, TX
San Pedro Cemetery was established in 1909 to serve the San Marcos community and was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2007. Its Spanish name reflects the Tejano and Hispanic heritage woven through Hays County's history. The burial ground remains a quiet record of the families who made their lives in this stretch of Central Texas.
Hector Family Cemetery
San Marcos, TX
Astyanax Troy 'Stine' Hector, born in Virginia in 1823 to Scottish immigrants and named for Homer's Iliad, came to Texas as a young man and worked as a farmer, hatmaker, and land surveyor. The family cemetery was begun in 1864 when his wife Sarah died in childbirth and was buried on the farm; while Hector served in the Civil War, his thirteen-year-old son kept the place running. Hector was the last of the family laid to rest here, in 1905.
James Lafayette and Eliza Pitts Malone House
San Marcos, TX
Built in 1891–92 for James and Eliza Malone, parents of sixteen children, this Victorian Queen Anne home anchored the Stringtown settlement east of San Marcos, where the Malones were among the earliest pioneer families. A 1926 remodel gave it a Classical Revival face, and a 1996 renovation restored its exuberant original details — the two-story porch, chamfered columns, jigsawn brackets, and turned balusters.