Thomas David Pettit

The following was written and contributed by
EPMoss

THOMAS DAVID PETTIT

My Subject was born at the family farm near Model Tenn. on Wednesday March 20, 1870. He was the son of George W. and Etna Elizabeth Sills Pettit. His boy hood was spent in that area where he received a common school education. He married Emerina Porter 3 Feb. 1895 at the court house in Dover, Tn.

After the death of his father he helped on the farm and also on the farm of his grandfather Sills . Since the Sills farm was some distance from home, all the males in the family would go and make ‘’camp’’ in the spring and again in the fall to plant and harvest the crops.

The main crops were tobacco and oats. The tobacco was taken by barge down the Cumberland River to Paducah, Ky. to be sold. On one occasion when they were on their way down the river, a black man was killed during a fight. I do not know how my grandfather was involved but he was arrested and spent six months in jail. While he was incarcerated he grew a full beard and when he returned home the family did not recognize him.

When he was twenty-eight years old, the family loaded their covered wagon, drawn by oxen and headed for Texas. They were forced to stop in Arkansas due to the delicate condition of his wife, who gave birth to her second son in 1898. They spent a year there where he share cropped and than returned to Stewart Co., Tenn.

The family moved to Ballard County Ky. in 1916 and he remained there until the death of his wife in 1945. After her death, he lived in Slater, Ky. And than moved to Marshall County, Ky., to lived with his son, Oscar and family.

Pappy Pettit was tall and clean shaven except for a handsome moustache.

in our possession.

He was hit and killed by a bread truck near his home in Marshall County on 31 October 1950.

He and his wife were born again Christians.

They are buried in Bethlehem Cemetery near Wickliffe, Ky.

Grave and monument are located on side near back of church.

EPMoss

1980 A.D.