Discontinued 28 May 1889; papers to Leslie, Waller County
PITTSVILLE, TEXAS. [marker]
PLANTERS PREFERRING THE PRAIRIE TO THE HAZARDOUS BRAZOS RIVER BOTTOMS SETTLED THIS VILLAGE IN THE 1840'S. NAMED FOR STORE OWNERS A. R. AND AMANDA [WADE] PITTS, IT WAS A MAJOR COMMERCIAL CENTER BY 1860. DURRING THE CIVIL WAR, THE PITTSVILLE HOME GUARD AND CONFEDERATE CALVERY UNITS, WHICH HELPED RECAPTURE GALVESTON, CAMPED IN THE AREA. NOTABLE RESIDENTS INCLUDED ROBERT LOCKE HARRIS AND A. A. LAURANCE, CONFEDERATE SURGEONS; WILLIAM SHERIFF AND J. WESSON PARKER, TEXAS LEGISLATORS AND FORT BEND COUNTY JUDGES; AND JOHN HUGGINS, INNOVATOR OF HORSE RACING TECHNIQUES. THE ARRIVAL OF A NEW RAILROAD TO THE SOUTH IN 1888, AND THE SUBSEQUENT FOUNDING OF FULSHEAR, RESULTED IN THE GRADUAL DECLINE AND EVENTUAL DISAPPEARANCE OF PITTSVILLE BY THE LATE 1940 S. [2010]
Pittsville was located three miles north of Fulshear at the junction of what is now Farm Road 359 with Hunt-Jordan Road in north Fort Bend County. The settlement began to grow when early plantation owners, finding it impossible to live in the swampy, though fertile, Brazos River bottoms, built their homes on the high prairie lands away from the threat of floods. The settlement was named for the Pitts family, who operated a store and distributed the mail. All the people up the Brazos River who did not get their mail at Richmond were included in Pittsville. The 1860 census listed some 240 people living in Pittsville. Farming and stock raising were the main occupations, but also listed were wagoners, carpenters, schoolteachers, a brick mason, an engineer, a minister, a merchant, a clerk, a physician, a wheelwright, a machinist, an artesian-well borer, and other workers. As the years passed the town had several general stores, as well as a blacksmith shop, a millinery shop, a photo studio, and a two-story school or academy. Pittsville acquired a post office on May 31, 1870, with Mrs. Lucy Upton and postmistress. The post office was discontinued on June 15, 1889, because the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad had bypassed the community, the town of Fulshear had been established, and the people of Pittsville were moving to Fulshear to be near the railroad. The last residents of Pittsville were Mrs. Alice (J. R.) Nesbitt and her daughter, Doris, who moved away in 1947. Since that time the only evidences of Pittsville are an abandoned cistern and a clump of trees.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Clarence Wharton, Wharton's History of Fort Bend County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1939).
Sethora West
Camp Pittsville, The Pittsville Homeguard encamped at this Post in the summer of 1861, John L. Camp commanding. Bellville Countryman, June 26, 1861
BELLVILLE [TX] COUNTRYMAN, July 31, 1861, p. 2, c. 6
Banner Presentation at Pittsville.
We have
been requested by a committee at Pittsville, which is near the line of Austin
and Fort Bend counties, to insert the following address, delivered recently by
Miss M. J. Hedgpeth, to the Pittsville Home Guards.
Gentlemen of the Pittsville
Home Guards!—In behalf of the ladies of the neighborhood I stand here to present
to you a banner, the emblem of your country's nationality. It is in no peaceful times that we make you
the recipients of such an emblem, nor is it a mere display, an empty pageant,
but the stern reality of an impending conflict, in which our dearest rights as
freemen are involved, renders the occasion to us all, replete with the deepest
interest and throws around it all the solemnity of feeling and of thought. We are, gentlemen, on the threshold of a new
epoch which has been ushered in with storm and tempest. Already has the lightning flashed and the
thunders of battle reverberated on the Southern breeze which hitherto was vocal
only with the melody of peace. We see
too plainly, in the dim distance, the coercive arm of power raised threateningly
against us, not to believe that the future, which is but a step in advance, is
fraught with responsibilities to startle and arouse. Then it behooves you to gird yourselves well
for the contest, and meet them like men, intelligently and resolutely. The ladies in this vicinage are deeply
sensible of the emergency at hand, and have delegated me to give expression to
the interest felt, by the presentation of this banner. It is not the stars and stripes under which
Southern hearts have so often braved death for honor. No, we stand today beneath the folds of a
flag symbolical of a new covenant, one that lately has received a baptism with
the spirit of perfect freedom, and one which, from the depths of our hearts, we
believe consecrated by the great Jehovah to success. In placing this glorious emblem at the head
of your column, we [illegible] for a moment, consider duty's debt
discharged. We are fully sensible that
there are hardships to be endured, dangers to be undergone, difficulties to be
surmounted; but believe us, when we declare, that the emotions of patriotism
which now swell your manly bosoms, find in our hearts emotions in perfect
unison, which will give us strength to endure hardships, and firmness to
surmount difficulties in this cause of truth and justice, and though we may not
give evidence of the existence of such patriotism, by wielding in our weak hands
the rough implements of war, yet we will be bounded only by a sphere in which it
is our part to move, in our contributions to yours and your country's
welfare. Ours is the task to fit you out
for the distant expedition, to cheer your departure with words of hope and
promises to pray hourly for your safety, to weep tears of sorrow for those who
fall, to wait tenderly around the bed of suffering, and to crown with love and
laurels the manly brows of those who return to us as victors. These duties, I solemnly pledge you, in
behalf of the ladies I represent, shall be performed.
Receive now, gentlemen of
the Guard, this banner which we have prepared for you, from a sense of patriotic
duty; carry it where the interest of our beloved country calls, be the ordeal
through which it must pass one of fire and blood, but oh, remember when the God
of battles shall have crowned your efforts with victory, it is the prayer of
those who gave it, that its folds may wave above the heads of those who act
responsive to the calls of mercy.
James Ashley Davis was a handsome, happy-go-lucky, man from Pittsville who was kind to both men and animals. When he was still a young man, he joined the Confederacy and engaged in the Civil War. Accompanied by a man servant, he rode off too battle mounted on a grey horse.
When his friends suggested that he made a good target on a grey horse, he said he did not think the Yankee soldiers were marksmen. He was mistaken, however, as he was wounded several times. One of his wounds was through the mouth and would appear as dimples on both cheeks for the rest of his life.
Davis fought at Shiloh and Murfreesboro, Tennessee, before returning to home to recover from his wounds. Once healed, he rejoined the fighting until the war endeed.
It's told he was a sober Christian man who was trusted by local ranchers to drive their cattle to market. He made several trips over the trails with Texas Longhornes to the railhead at Abeline,Kansas. While living in a ranch house at Foster, Davis died in 1906. The Museum of Southern History
Discontinued 28 May 1889; papers to Leslie, Waller County