From <i>The Pettit Correspondent</i>, Volume 3, Number 3, page 150<p>

<h2>Robert T. and Malinda Pettit</h2>

<strong>
Submitted by Christine Peters<br>
(P.O. Box 26, Tuttle, OK  73089)
</strong><p>

<em>
From page 439 the "Gonzales County History" - The Gonzales Historical
Commission, 1986.  The footnotes found at the end of the article are the
notations that Mrs. Peters made in the copy she sent.  This is apparently
the same Robert T. Pettit mentioned in queries on pages 25 and 26 of the
July 1988 issue, in the PRD on page 100 of the October 1989 issue of TPC,
and in the Miscellany column on page 133 of the July 1990 issue.<p>
</em>

The first Gonzales County, Texas census which listed the Robert T. Pettit
family was the census of 1850.  However, from all accounts, they arrived in
Texas from Arkansas about 1840.<sup>1</sup><p>

Both Robert and his wife Malinda Pettit were natives of Kentucky, perhaps
Lincoln County. Soon after their marriage, Robert, born in 1795, and
Malinda, born in 1802, left Kentucky to go to a new home in
Missouri.<sup>2</sup> In Missouri their first four children were born:
Benjamin (1817), named for his grandfather Pettit; Robert Jr., (1825);
Martha (1829 - October 2, 1868); and Malinda Dixie (1832-1859).  In 1833 the
family of six migrated from Missouri to Arkansas which became the native
state for the Pettit couple's next three children.  In rapid succession were
born: William (1835); Arlemia (1836); and Sarah Jane "Sade" (1838).<p>

As many other pioneers of that era, they left Arkansas<sup>3</sup>,
traveling by covered wagon, to join their Missouri friends in the farming
and ranching country of Texas.  Cotton was the chief crop of the Pettits,
and Robert Pettit became a prosperous cotton farmer of Gonzales County.

The couple's last three children were born in Gonzales County: Gennetta
(1843); James (1844); and George (1848).  At that time they lived in the
Peach Creek community near Waelder.<sup>4</sup><p>

Three Pettit daughters married sons of a pioneer couple, William and Minerva
Woods Harrell. On June 29, 1849 Malinda Dixie married Milvern Harrell.  In
1849 Martha married Leander Harrell (September 5, 1826 - November 24, 1891)
and they had seven children; and February 12, 1853 Sarah Jane married
Montraville Harrell and they had six children.  Gennetta married Alexander
McBryde.<p>

Leander and Martha Pettit Harrell had seven children: Mary Elizabeth (March
3, 1851-August 15, 1851); E.C. (1853), death date unknown, married Pauline
Tousdale; Melinda Minerva (June 5, 1856 - July 1, 1856; Martha J. (1858),
death date unknown, married W.K.  Hay; Elizabeth G. (March 15, 1860);
William (1864 - January 1, 1867).<p>

Sarah Jane Pettit and Montraville Harrell had six children: Robert Todd
married Ann Ivey; Joel Berry (November 21, 1859) married Bessie Davis; Felix
Newcomer married Montie Sheffield; George Lyons married Lelia Parker; Norman
married Mable, last name unknown; and Ida A. married Harley, last name
unknown.<p>

<sup>1</sup>actually 1847.  
<sup>2</sup>Madison and Wayne Counties.
<sup>3</sup>Logan County. 
<sup>4</sup>There were two more children, Mary Ann and Nancy.