Pike County AlArchives History .....Curious Migration To Texas 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Mark Reid rmarkreid@suddenlink.net May 28, 2008, 3:30 pm

                       A Curious Migration

	Mark Reid, with the Wood County Genealogical Society, is interested in 
the relatively large number of people who migrated from Pike County, AL to Camp 
and Wood Counties, Texas.
	The basic characteristics of Pike Co., AL are not remarkably different 
from those of most of east Texas. So why did numbers of people decide to go 
west, and why did they choose this particular area of east Texas?
	Some families moved shortly after the Civil War, but larger numbers 
seemed to move  from the late 1870's to 1900.  A few facts are pertinent:
		Wood County was organized from Van Zandt County in 1850.
		Camp County was organized from Upshur County in 1874.
		The East Line and Red River (narrow-guage) railroad went from 
Jefferson, TX and reached Pittsburg (Camp Co.) in 1877, then reached Winnsboro 
(Wood Co.) a year later in 1878.
		Some people are known to have taken the railroad from Pike 
County down to New Orleans, traveled by boat up the Red River to Jefferson, and 
then rode the train to Pittsburg in Camp County and/or Winnsboro in Wood County.
	It has been speculated that members of the Hopewell Primitive Baptist 
Church in Pike County organized the Hopewell Primitive Baptist Church in 
Pleasant Grove, Texas, just southwest of Winnsboro. However, records show that 
the Hopewell church was organized in 1855 before the main portion of the 
migration from Pike. Many Pike migrants did join the church and are buried in 
the adjacent cemetery.
	Surnames known to have migrated thusly are: Benton, Burgin, Carlisle, 
Carnley, Cox, Dendy, Dooly, Faulk, Flournoy, Fowler, Hall, Harris, Holley, 
Kennemer, Pugh, Raley, Redding, Rogers, Romine, Sessions, Shamburger, Spivey, 
Stagner, Stansell, Stevens, Talbert/Tolbert, Turner, Vickers, Warrick and 
Wilson.  The list is almost certainly not exhaustive.
	Anyone having additional knowledge of this migration is encouraged to 
communicate with woodco@suddenlink.net.  We are particularly interested in the 
reasons for the migration, and remembered stories of the trip.



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