Edward Pedigo (Pediford)

Edward Pedigo (or Pediford) is my sixth great-grandfather. He was married to Hannah Elkins and they gave birth to a son Levi. Levi married Mary Newland and their daughter Elizabeth was married to William Pedigo Tanner, who is the grandfather of my Grandma Wescott (my great-grandmother). Ned Pedigo, as he was known, was born 24 December 1732 in Baltimore, Maryland. He died 26 April 1834 in Barren, Kentucky.

According to an application for membership to the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, filed by Norman Fine Lincoln of New Mexico, Ned served in the Revolution for three years. He had enlisted "for the war" and was granted a land warrant by the state of Virginia in recognition of his services.

According to the transcribed roll of "The U.S. Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783", Ned was a private his entire time in the war. He served first in the 7th Virginia Regiment, commanded by Capt. Charles Fleming; then he served in the 3rd and 7th Virginia Regiment, as well as the 5th and 11th regiments, under Capt. Henry Young. Since Norman Lincoln's application says that Ned served for three years, I assume that he left the Virginia Regiment about 1780. There is no record of the battles he participated in and that's a matter for further research.

The application also states that Ned had served in the French and Indian War. He was with Washington at the march on Fort Duquesne and was present at Braddock's defeat. He was one of only 30 Virginians who left that battlefield alive.

The French and Indian War was fought between 1754-1763, which would make Ned about 22 when the war began and about 31 when the war ended. Braddock's defeat occurred at the Monongahela River on 9 July 1755. There is no record of Ned's service and therefore no account of why he was serving with the British. He may have been some sort of scout; he may have served in a larger unit of Virginia militia.

According to the membership application, he lived in Patrick County, Virginia during the Revolutionary War. Patrick County is in the southeastern corner of the state of Virginia, almost in Kentucky. Ned must have migrated south from Baltimore which might put him near the Potomac River area where George Washington lived and this may explain why he was a member of the Virginians fighting the French and Indians.

You may note that Ned was 101 years old when he died. He is buried in the Pedigo-Neville-Genie Glass Cemetery, Randolph, Metcalfe County, Kentucky. This is near the town of Barren where records list that Ned died.

This and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee at McDonald’s ($25 at Starbuck’s).

We Loughs (David, Keith, Denise) are descended from the Gaines family through our mother, Hattie Esther Gaines Lough. The line goes like this: Hattie Esther, daughter of Carl Buford, son of James Emory, son of Henry Pendleton, son of Joseph Pendleton, son of William Prior, son of Joseph, son of James (II), son of Richard, son of James (I), son of Thomas, who is rumored to be descended from Daffyd Llewellyn, King of Wales.

The name "Gaines" seems to come from a Welsh name "Gam" that means "Squinty eyes". It evolved into Game and Games and then to Gaines.

(The remainder of this information comes from a genealogical publication about Arkansas families—but I can’t for the life of me remember where I ran across it on the Web! I must learn to take better notes! There is apparently some confusion about some of these families and who their descendants are, according to another article I read but can’t find again. Drat! But I’ll go with this until something more definitive comes along.)

Starting backward from Thomas Gaines, who emigrated about 1641 from Brecon, Wales, to Virginia. He is the great-great grandfather of President James Madison. (I don’t know what the lineage is.) Thomas was born in 1585 in Brecon, Wales and is the son of Sir John Gaines (1559-1606).

Thomas’ son James was born in 1620. According to a deed dated 7 May 1663 and a patent issued 2 March 1667, he lived in Rappahanock County, Virginia.

Richard Gaines, son of James, was born in New Kent County, Virginia (now King and Queen County) in 1670. He died 13 February 1755 in Culpeper County, Virginia. There is some confusion about his wife (or wives): Dorothy Kelley or Catherine Madison or Catherine Rawlins. Richard was father of: James, William Henry, Francis, Henry, Thomas, John, Richard, and Roger.

We are descended from James, born 18 January 1710 in Culpeper, Virginia. He died 10 March 1786 in Culpeper, Virginia. He married Mary Pendleton (this is where the Pendleton name comes from in our lineage) in 1731 in Culpeper County. I would love to have a look at both wills, James’ in Culpeper County, Mary’s in Madison County (which used to be Culpeper County). I wonder if they were well off—and this is why they didn’t move from this one spot in Virginia.

Mary is the daughter of Henry and Mary Bishop (Taylor) Pendleton III. She was born in 1717 in King and Queen County, Virginia and died in Madison County in 1803. Mary is supposedly descended from Charlemagne through her maternal line, Gregory. The Pendletons must be some sort of influential family all across the south. I wonder if Pendleton County, Virginia (now West Virginia), is named for them. This is where our Lough family migrates through on their way to Ohio.

James and Mary had 12 children: James (III), Rev. Henry Gaines (who migrated to South Carolina and died there in 1830), Richard Edward, Joseph, William, Francis, Thomas, Catherine, Mary, Sarah, and Isabella. Richard, Catherine, and Sarah married mates with the last name of Broaddus. That name will pop up a couple of generations later in the son of Joseph Pendleton Gaines, Thomas Broaddus. Are they all cousins or siblings? I need to do some research on the Broaddus family, just for fun. It might say a lot about the relationships families had in colonial Virginia. I think at least some of the Broaddus family migrates to Kentucky, which is also where Joseph Gaines and Francis Gaines go.  Thomas Gaines and the Rev. Henry Gaines moved to South Carolina.

James, by the way, may be a Revolutionary War Veteran. If he is, he would be in his late 60s. Maybe he was just tough. You never know about militias. Or maybe this is another James Gaines. Hard to tell.

Joseph Gaines, born in 1747, moved to Kentucky. That is about all the information I can find about him. I have found a “Joseph Gaines” who signed the Ten-Thousand Name Petition in Virginia in 1776. If this is the same Joseph, that might indicate that he moved to Kentucky after the Revolutionary War. That would be after Boone and others blaze the trail across the Blue Ridge into Kentucky. There is also a record from the Mason County, Kentucky, Marriage Abstracts, 12 August 1789, that lists Joseph Gaines as a bondsman in the marriage of George Headly. Since Joseph’s grandson (Joseph Pendleton Gaines) lives and died in Nicholas, KY, which is in Mason County, I think there is good reason to believe that this Joseph is our Joseph. So Joseph moved somewhere between 1776 and 1789.

My records show that Joseph married Lucinda J. Wheeler, having a son William Prior, born in 1775, (which means that Joseph and Lucinda were married in Virginia). Joseph died in Kentucky in 1803.  I assume this came from somebody’s family Bible. Information about Joseph and his son William Prior is scarce. It is possible that William did not go with his father to Kentucky until later (or ever), maybe moving to Kentucky to take over his father’s land after Joseph’s death (?). William’s son Joseph Pendleton is born in Virginia in 22 September 1802.

(Joseph is the last Gaines in our lineage to be mentioned in the Arkansas article.)

Lough Family Pictures

Surprises await around every corner! After a long search for my great-grandmother's identity, I found out that all I had to do was ask Aunt Lois. And she even had pictures! So here are a group of pictures with various people: Charles and Linnie Garrett (my great-grandmother--Jim's mother--and her husband); Jim and Susan Lough (grandparents); Dan and Lois (my Dad and Aunt); E. O. and Annie Wescott (my great-grandparents on Susan's side); and Jessie (Jim's half-sister) and Edna Garrett (Charles O's daughter).

Linnie Lough
(Unknown date)

Malinda E. Lough (don't know what the "E" stood for) was born in September 1882 somewhere in the neighborhood of Farmersville, Texas. Her father, J. R. Lough, had bought a tract of land on Pilot Grove Creek in 1878 and that is probably where Linnie was born. She was still living with her family in that area in the census of 1900.

James and Linnie Lough
(Son and Mother)

Linnie had a son (out of wedlock), James Carey Lough, on 12 March 1902. Whether she was living at home or somewhere else I don't know, but somewhere along in here she moved to Fort Worth. In 1907 she lived in a boarding house run by Miss Eugene Carroll at 205 1/2 West Weatherford (downtown Fort Worth). She worked as a cook at a sanitarium overseen by Carrie Webster, a nurse, in 1910. This sanitarium was on 8th Avenue, near where the Baylor Hospital is today. In 1908, she had given birth to a daughter named Jessie, again out of wedlock.

Jessie, Edna, James, Linnie

Charlie, James, Linnie, Edna, Jessie, Susan

(Jessie is listed in the 1910 census as "Jessie Lough". We--Aunt Lois and I--think that Jessie's last name was Robinson when she died. Jessie was listed as a "boarder"--at the age of 2--with Charley and May Denson, who I think are friends of Linnie, in 1910, Fort Worth. The Denson's also have another boarder living with them, John Thomason, Charley's 21-year-old brother-in-law, who is a laborer at the packing house in Fort Worth. I can't help but speculate on John's relation to Linnie and Jessie, although it would be completely natural for him to live with his in-laws at the same time as little Jesse needed a home. I find it interesting that Charley Denson is a carpenter at the Packing House, which is eventually what Charles Garrett will do for a living. One wonders if the Densons are the way Linnie and Charles Garrett are introduced to each other.)

Charles O. and Linnie Garrett

When she was about 34 (1917), Linnie married Charles Ora Garrett. Charlie had been married before (divorced) and had a daughter, Edna. The Garretts turn up in Morris, Oklahoma, in September 1918, according to Charlie's draft card. He is an "oil worker." Of course, there is no record of Jim being with them, but this may have been the way Jim Lough gets to Oklahoma and begins his work in the oil fields. (According to the Fort Worth Phone Directory, Jim was living with Charlie and Linnie in 1918.)

Charlie and Linnie Garrett

Annie and E. O. Wescott, Dan, Susan, Lois, Linnie

In 1930, Linnie and Charlie make their home at 2624 Gould Avenue in Fort Worth, a house that still stands at the end of Gould Ave. She died 31 May 1946 and is buried at Laurel Land Cemetery in south Fort Worth.

Charlie Garrett with unidentified children
The house on Gould avenue is in the background.

Fort Worth in the early 1900s.

I thought it would be interesting to see how Fort Worth looked during the time my Great-grandmother, Linnie Lough, lived there in 1907. She lived in a boarding house at 205 ½ W. Weatherford, run by Miss Eugene Carroll. This address is fairly close to where Houston Street intersects Weatherford in what is now downtown Fort Worth. There are plenty of pictures posted on the internet of this area of Fort Worth around this time.

This store would have been right down the street from where Linnie boarded.

The Ellison Building would have been about 2 blocks from where Linnie lived; I’m sure she would have been familiar with the Western National Bank and the Moore Building, that were both within 10 blocks of her boarding house.

This hospital was either next-door or very near (within a couple of houses of) the “sanitarium” where Linnie worked in 1910. 

If you want to look at more, click this link: A history of Fort Worth in pictures.

More about Waightstill Avery Montgomery

Photocopy of a photocopy
W. A., Mary, and Hugh
Montgomery

(This information was found in Collin County Families, in an article written by James Ray Montgomery, W.A. Montgomery’s great-grandson.)

Waightstill Avery Montgomery left Burke, North Carolina, in 1857. He was 23. He left North Carolina because the best farmland had been taken and he could buy land in Texas at low prices.

Frying Pan Ranch
--upon which at least a part
of the Montgomery family farm was located

Waightstill settled near his relatives, the Largents, east of Pot Rack Creek (south of Blue Ridge). He married Mary Elizabeth Largent on 6 September 1858 and raised eleven children there.

After the Civil War (see the post Waightstill Avery Montgomery—Civil War Veteran), he resumed farming until 1886. He and his eldest son, William (Billy), opened a mercantile store in Fayburgh. (My granddad Carl Buford Gaines was born in “Fayburg”. That probably means he was born on the farm just a couple of miles east of Fayburg. This article also reveals that Carl Buford's nickname was "Tom".)

Montgomery Family Cemetery

Mary died 6 May 1897 (she is buried in the Montgomery Family cemetery). Waightstill moved to Durant, Indian Territory, where he owned some lots. He helped lay out some of the town sites. (My question about this is: did he go to Durant and then have his family follow him there, or did he follow his family there? Several of his children were living in the Durant area when he died. And my mother and her sisters were born in this area, Bryan County: Lillie and Bonnie in Kemp, Helen and Esther—Mom—in Albany.)

James Montgomery relates that Waightstill like to get maps and go treasure hunting, looking for gold that had been buried during the Civil War.

Waightstill's and Mary's
monument

Waightstill died 30 March 1908 at his daughter’s home in Durant. “He was returned by wagon to the farm near Fayburgh, a trip of about seventy miles over very bad roads.” He was buried in the Montgomery Family cemetery, beside Mary, two daughters (Martha and Mary) and his son Dudley, all of whom died before he did.

[Fayburgh was a community south of Blue Ridge, named by a Captain Bristol when he applied for a Post Office. He named it after his daughter, Fay. The Post Office was established 4 Mar 1884. The spelling of the town was changed to Fayburg, 6 Nov 1893. The Post Office was discontinued on 15 May 1926 and Fayburg disappeared.]

The sadness of headstones

W. A. and Elizabeth
Montgomery's monument

That's me--
self-consciously

I don’t know why finding the graves of my ancestors is so fulfilling. Perhaps there is a connection established that says, “This is partly who I am.” Standing in the Montgomery Family cemetery south of Blue Ridge was a moving experience for me. The cemetery is almost ruined; the headstones are weathered almost beyond recognition; thorns are growing so thickly that one can barely walk through them; trees are rotting and falling over into the fenced-off plot. (If someone doesn’t clean it up soon—and keep it relatively clean—I am afraid the owners of the land will soon decide to sweep away the fence and plow it under.) Nevertheless, I straightened up the monument that marked the graves of my great-great-grandfather and my great-great-grandmother (Waightstill Avery and Elizabeth Montgomery) and ran my fingers over the letter cut into the weathered rock. It was almost as though I could feel their living presence.

Old Liberty Cemetery

You can imagine the disappointment I felt when I came to the Old Liberty cemetery north of Farmersville. It is a beautiful old graveyard, with green grass and shady trees. However, out of over 150 graves, only about 30 of them have headstones remaining on them. Some of them have fallen over and were broken; others were shattered by vandals; others were probably never marked or marked only by wooden crosses. I know that my great-great-great-uncle, Drayton Lough, was buried here, but no evidence of his grave remains. I suspect that my great-great-grandfather and –mother, J. R. and Mattie Lough, were buried here, but neither proof nor monuments exist. I felt rather sad at losing them—as though they had recently died.

I tried to imagine all the reasons their graves might not have been marked. Perhaps they were simply too poor to afford a decorated headstone. Perhaps there was no one left in the area when they died to mark their graves. (J. J. and Drayton, their sons, were both dead; Lexenia has no doubt left home; Lennie is still in the area—I think—but I wonder what her relationship is with her father after the births of two illegitimate children…) J. R. had remarried the year before he died, to Emma Bradberry, but who knows whether she was in good enough health—or wealthy enough—to mark his grave?

Linnie and Charles Garrett's graves

If that was sad enough, I was particularly struck when I sought the grave of my great-grandmother Linnie and her husband Charles Garrett. The Laurel Land Funeral Home had records that showed both of them were buried in Section 10, Lot 141, graves 1 & 2. I found the graves without much trouble. On one side is buried a Catholic priest; on the other another Catholic priest. Both of these graves had headstones. But the grave of my great-grandmother and her husband was only grassed over.

I wondered why? Too poor to afford headstones when Linnie died? Was Charles too ill to worry about that sort of thing? Were their families alienated from them and no one cared to put up monuments? (Charles was divorced, with one daughter, who might not have been well-disposed toward her father; similarly Linnie’s children were both born out-of-wedlock and may not have desired to oversee the setting of gravestones.) I almost cried at the loneliness of it all; not that one is less significant without grave markers, but there is a sort of loss at looking at these other graves, all with monuments, and these without.

I am, by the way, intending to set a gravestone on the graves of Linnie and Charles, as soon as I save the money: $1331. If anyone else wants to go in on it with me, you would be welcome.

Research on James Randolph Lough

I learned a ton from my day or so in Collin County searching for our roots. The McKinney library is a great place to do research. I wish every library was that well equipped!

1. J. R. Lough: I think that James Randolph must have gone by “J. R.”. This is the way his name is consistently used on all his legal documents. Of course, he could always have been referred to as “James” or “Jim”, “Jimmie” or even “Randy”, but the way his initials were used on tax records, in the deed I found, and on his marriage license makes me think that he went solely by his initials, “J. R.”

2. When and why J. R. came to Collin County: I can find no record of J. R. in Collin County before 1877, when he married Mattie McCown (or “McCowan”). His first appearance on the Collin County tax rolls was also in 1877. He bought land from Walter and Margaret Yeary on Pilot Grove Creek in 1878. From then on, he farms on a 40-acre plot until his death in 1918. (I don’t know where that farm is.) J. R. probably came to Collin County in the 1870s as a result of the completion of several railroads into the area. I have no information about him between 1860, when he is living in Jefferson, Indiana, with his parents, and 1877, when he appears in Collin County.

3. J. R.’s and Mattie’s marriage: they were married in Collin County sometime after 28 August 1877. This is when the license is issued; there is no date filled in by the minister when he married them. The minister’s name is Benjamin Watson. He is the pastor of the Bethlehem Baptist Church, which is southeast of Blue Ridge. Were J. R. and Mattie members of this church? (It would be interesting to find out if there are any membership records for the Bethlehem Baptist Church.)

J. J., their first son, was born a couple of years later in 1879. In the 1880 Federal Census, J. J. is listed as suffering from “appoplexy”. It is difficult to know what this means. Historically it meant a stroke or some sort of ailment from which one simply drops dead without warning. Maybe J. J. was subject to fainting fits of some sort. Since “apoplexy” also means “being enraged or excited”, maybe the baby had periodic spasms, perhaps epileptic fits or some other type of seizure.

4. Where did J. R. and Mattie live: In 1878 J. R. purchased 6 acres of land from Walter and Margaret Yeary. That land was on Pilot Grove Creek; it originally belonged to T. C. Bean. Pilot Grove Creek is to the southwest of Blue Ridge and to the northwest of Farmersville. “T. C. Bean” is “Thomas Bean”, a resident of Bonham who was a surveyor who donated land in southeastern Grayson County for the construction of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway. The town of Tom Bean grew up on that land. Pilot Grove Creek runs south from around Tom Bean to Lavon Lake, about 10-20 miles. I figure J. R. wanted land along the creek for access to water; maybe he wanted it to build a home on.

Drayton Lough is buried in the Old Liberty Cemetery. I don’t know for sure where J. R. and Mattie are buried, but I would think J. R. would have buried his son somewhere near his home and probably in the same cemetery he had buried his wife a few years before. (I don’t have a death certificate for Mattie Lough—that might tell where she was buried.) Old Liberty is just north of Farmersville, about 4-5 miles east of Pilot Grove Creek. Perhaps Drayton had gone to the Old Liberty school. (Interestingly, for us Church of Christ people, Old Liberty was the site of one of the oldest Restorationist churches in Texas, established in 1845 by J. B. Wilmeth and descendants of Collin McKinney.)

The Bethlehem Baptist Church, where J. R. and Mattie were probably married, is only a little farther north and east of Old Liberty, a couple or three miles.

My inexperience with tax records and deed records and a general failure to take good notes buffaloes me right here. Collin Country tax records have a slot for “grantor”—which I take to be the person who originally sold the land another person owns. In 1897, J. R. lives on land for which the “grantor” is Mrs. E. C. Cameron. This may show that J. R. had moved to a different farm between 1878 and 1897. (I ran out of time for the research on tax and deed records.)

5. Other interesting things about J. R.: J. R.’s death certificate is a wealth of absorbing and contradictory information. He died on 24 February 1918 at 1 p.m. of “influenza and acute cystitus”, according to Dr. J. B. Wright, the attendant physician. Dr. Wright had treated J. R. for 4 days. He also says that J. R. had been suffering from “neprhitis calculis(?)” for the past 3 years and 2 months. I figure his kidneys were failing. This problem was a contributing factor to his death.

The person who provided the demographic information on J. R.’s death certificate is Dr. Wright. This may indicate that the Loughs had moved into Farmersville before J. R.’s death—or that J. R. was living in some sort of nursing facility. What is funny is that he gives J. R.’s date of birth as 30 February 1852 (J. R. was born in October 1846); he says that J. R. was born in Michigan (he was born in Ohio); he gives J. R.’s father’s birthplace as Michigan; he says that J. R.’s mother’s name was Jefferson (born in Michigan—her name was Coberly and was born in Ohio). It is evident where “Jefferson” comes from—that was J. R.’s place of residence in 1860 before he moved to Texas. But where the rest of the information comes from, I don’t know. Perhaps J. R. suffered from some sort of dementia and gave confusing information to his doctor.

What is truly funny is that J. R.’s age at the time of his death is “76 years and 4 months”. If he WAS born in 1852, that would make him 66; so you can see how this might happen—a mistake of a round 10 years. J. R. was actually 71 when he died.