William A. Pitts

PITTS, WILLIAM A. (d. 1913). William A. Pitts was a quartermaster in the Confederate army under General Henry E. McCulloch. In 1864 he married Samonia Catherine Smith, daughter of Alexander Smith of Virginia.

Smith had one son from a previous marriage, John Nunnelly Hoffar. In 1865 the family moved to Marshall, Texas, where the Confederate government maintained an arsenal and all teams and supplies transfered there from Bonham.

In 1866 they moved to Indianola on Matagorda Bay in Calhoun County. It is believed that Pitts joined his father in law, Alexander Smith, in the cattle business. Smith is reported to have shipped many longhorn cattle to Havana, Cuba via the Morgan steamship lines that frequented the deep water port of Indianola.

The Pitts family left Indianola after a series of severe storms that eventually destroyed the town. They moved to Austin where they remained until their deaths.

William A. Pitts died in 1913 (date unknown); Mrs. Samonia Pitts died September 28, 1917. They are both buried at the Texas State Cemetery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Family biography of John Nunnelly Hoffer received from descendent Eugene Scanlon of Boca Raton, Florida, 1996.