Father of Fifteen...Husband To Two

Thomas Augustus Pittman was born in the fall of 1808 in Columbia County, Georgia, where the Pittman name held a measure of historic and notable significance.  He was the great-grandson of Rev. Daniel Marshall, who established the first Baptist Church in Georgia. 

His grandmother Lucy Eunice Marshall Pittman upheld her father's Baptist influence by raising eight sons and a daughter to abide by the scriptures.   Her first son and Thomas' father,  Ichabod in turn continued to put down roots in Columbia County near his homestead along Kiokee Creek and the Kiokee Creek Baptist Church.

By the time Thomas was seventeen years of age, his parents had completed their family with three more children.  A small number of offspring for the times when most farming families boasted ten to twelve children.  As the oldest son, Thomas began his work on the family farm just a few years before his father's untimely and early demise in 1827 at age 45, just 20 years after his Georgia Bonded Marriage to Frances Jackson Stone.

Thomas married young at the age of 17 the year before his father's sudden death.  His June Bride, Sarah B. 'Salley' King were married on June 15, 1826.  Salley was the daughter of a Revolutionary War Soldier from North Carolina who migrated to nearby Wilkes County, Georgia and then to Taliaferro County where Thomas and Salley were married.

Thomas and Salley made their home in Taliaferro County near her parents and large extended family, with all eight of their children born there.

 Salley died on February 14, 1852, apparently either in childbirth or soon after giving birth to James, who apparently did not survive either.  There are no official death records for either of them. 

However, less than one month later Thomas age 43, married Lucy Ann Bramblett age 24.  Lucy was the daughter of Ambrose S. and Nancy M. Huckabay Bramblett of Gwinnett County, Georgia.

It was not uncommon for a widower left with young children to remarry sooner than later.  There was a large extended Pittman Family in the Gwinnett , Columbia and surrounding counties known by all and known to be a family of upstanding community minded people with strong Christian beliefs and morals.

As Lucy was a single 24 year old woman close to the Pittman Family of Gwinnett County, she was a likely bride for Thomas and a mother for his children.  Given the short time between Sallye's death and Lucy's wedding, it would not be unthinkable for the union to be another of Georgia's Bond Marriages. 

Thomas and Lucy had seven children over a period of fifteen years.  Their oldest living child was Georgia Anne Pittman who died at age 86 years in 1947.  She never married and at the time of her death, her only living relatives were the children of her thirteen siblings and half siblings.  Between the two marriages, Thomas Augustus Pittman more than made up for his parents lack of a large family with fourteen of his fifteen children living to adulthood. 

~The only exception to at least a mid-life age was Asa Pittman who died at age 20, a casualty of the Civil War.
~William Thomas-served in Co I, Georgia 16th Infantry Regiment, enlisting one month after the death of his brother Asa.
 ~Simpson Clabus-served in Co A, Georgia 42nd Infantry Regiment, enlisting in March 1862...one month before his brother Asa's death.
~Jackson G.-served in Co I, Georgia 16th Infantry Regiment enlisting July 16, 1861.

Thomas Augustus Pittman lived the last twenty years of his life in Gwinnett County, Georgia with his second wife Lucy.  He died in 1872 at the age of 64 years old in Hog Mountain, Gwinnett County, Georgia. 

Lucy was almost half his age and lived another twenty-eight years.  She died January 13, 1900.  Thomas, Lucy and Sallye are buried in the Ebenezer Baptist Church Cemetery in Gwinnett County Georgia.

Rest In Peace 2nd Great Uncle and Aunts.  You are remembered as the Third Generation Georgians in Tracks of My Georgia Ancestors.