Biography of George E. Pedigo [#136-161]

GEORGE E. PEDIGO was born November 3, 1818, in Metcalfe County (then Barren), where he has since resided, except for short periods spent in Monroe and Hart Counties. He now lives within six miles of his birth place, and with the exceptions named - aggregating about twenty months - has always lived in the vicinity of it. His father, John Pedigo, was born February 4, 1796, in Patrick County, Va. He (the father) was thrice married; first, in 1817, to Sally B., daughter of Tarpley Oldham. From this union sprang six children: George E., Charles T., Eliza J. (deceased), William F., Elizabeth (Bowles), and Mary C. Our subject can remember very distinctly carrying his great-grandfather in his arms when he had become helpless. By industry he has become the owner of 330 acres of productive land. He is a member of the Church of Christ, and in politics a Republican. He had very poor opportunities for obtaining an education in early life, his mother having died when he was a small boy. Living with his grandfather, he went to school three miles to an old log house, with dirt floor, and rude seats made of round logs split open, and the split side turned up, with rude pins for feet; on these seats the scholars would sit and hum their lessons from early morn till late in the evening. At these schools he obtained his education, such as reading, writing and arithmetic. There was not a grammar nor geography in any school he ever attended; yet with pleasant memory he recalls those olden times, when he would rise early in the morning and start to the old schoolhouse in the bottom, the pathway leading through the woods covered with the seared leaves of autumn. O, that drum and fife we used to hear coming to the old schoolhouse for us to march after that day! William Anderson was the teacher.