John Wilson PEPPER

The following bio was taken from pages 340-341 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Gloria Riley

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

John Wilson Pepper was born in Pike County, Georgia, March 27, 1845. He was the oldest son of William and Elizabeth Crawford Pepper, who were married December 3, 1840 in Pike County, Georgia. William Pepper’s parents were Elisha Pepper, born in South Carolina, (son of John Pepper, Sr. and Elizabeth Oldham Pepper) and Jane Clark Pepper, born in South Carolina, (daughter of Arthur and Elizabeth Clark). John Wilson Pepper married Martha Taylor Yates, daughter of James and Teresa M. Winslett Yates, November 1, 1867 in Tallapoosa County, Alabama and died May 12, 1890 in Rusk County, Texas. John W. and Martha Pepper moved to Rusk County, Texas in 1882 after John received from his Uncle Arthur and Aunt Sally Pepper letters stating how great Texas was with its plentiful wild game, its good fishing, and land selling for one dollar an acre. Upon his arrival in Texas, John bought, near the Old Harmony Hill Community, land in Rusk County. Later, about 1904, John bought land and moved his family to what is now the Chalk Hill Community. In 1904 the community was called Pepper in honor of John Wilson Pepper and his sons. The name “Pepper” was on all road maps then. On April 22, 1891, John Wilson Pepper married his second wife, Josephine Melear Pepper. They donated the land for the Chalk Hill Cemetery in Rusk County; however, John and both of his wives are buried in the Harmony Hill Cemetery in Rusk County, Texas. In 1925 while living in Rusk County, John Wilson Pepper applied for a Texas Confederate Pension. John had walked barefoot to Columbus, Georgia to enlist in the Confederate Army when the Civil War began. He enlisted October 1, 1862 at seventeen years of age and was with Moody’s Brigade, Alabama Volunteers. He was with General Robert E. Lee when Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia in 1865. Lee and Grant met and talked under an apple tree, and later the soldiers cut down the tree, even dug the roots, to get pieces of it for souvenirs. John was paroled to go home on April 10, 1865. John Wilson Pepper was a devout Primitive Baptist by faith and practiced his religion. He wore a full beard, which in his later years was unusual for a man. He fished almost every day, but never on Sunday. He walked miles to the Cherokee Bayou and Sabine River to fish, even when his steps were feeble and slow. John loved to have his family visit. The whole clan would meet as his home every summer for a Pepper Family Reunion. The children of John Wilson and Martha Pepper were: James Arthur, John Wilson, Jr., Elisha Hamilton, Teresa E., David Gadsden, Martha Deliah, Ruth Arminnon, Thomas M., Treola (died when a baby), Sarah Taylor, Wilson Main, Jethro R. (Jeff), Mary Browning, and Stella Jane Pepper. John’s youngest child, Emily, was the daughter of John and his second wife, Josephine Pepper. John Wilson Pepper’s oldest son, James Arthur, was the father of my grandmother, Leatha Taylor Pepper Freeman, and the grandfather of my mother, Ida Freeman Berry Black. On February 10, 1930 John Wilson Pepper died. He, like both of his wives before him, was buried in white. Written by Beverly Berry Fogarty