| Marker Text |
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. |
