Pettus family

Born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, William Albert Pettus (1787-1844) sailed to Texas with his wife and brother Freeman (b. 1781) on the Revenge. As members of Stephen F. Austin's colony, each brother received two leagues and a labor of land. William settled in present-day Wharton, Fort Bend, and Waller Counties as a farmer and stock raiser. Freeman's land was in Colorado, Fayette, Matagorda, and Brazoria counties. From 1824 to 1832, William served as sindico procurador in San Felipe, before moving to present-day Austin County, where he opened a house of entertainment in 1836. In 1840, Pettus became director of the Houston and Brazos Railroad Company. Two years later, Sam Houston sent Pettus to Austin in an unsuccessful attempt to move the republic's archives from Austin to Washington-on-the-Brazos, an act known as the Archive War. His son William Albert Pettus (b. 1838) became a farmer and stockraiser in Goliad.