pp. 127-29

From Barbara Chandler Spray's "Chandler and Peacock Cousins, with Petty and Hayhurst Families"

     "John C. Peacock married Edna Josephine Hayhurst in Bastrop County, Texas on February 10, 1861.  He was 21 and his bride was one month shy of her fifteenth birthday.  Edna was the graddaughter of John and Elizabeth Dawson Petty of Pettytown.  Edna's mother, Alcy Petty Hayhurst, a widow, was an older sister of John M. Petty who married John's sister Cynthia.  Edna was rumored to be a 1/16 Cherokee, inherited from the Dawson-Rogers-Vann branches of her ancestry. 

     Photographs of Edna taken in the 1880's reveal her as a large-boned woman with dark hair and deep-set eyes.  She bore John eleven children, out of which seven lived to adulthood.  Edna died at age 40 on January 28, 1887. at their home near Waelder from complications arising from childbirth six weeks earlier.  The infant daughter Josie survived and lived a long life.  She was survived by her husband, eight children, and four grand children.  She was laid to rest in Waelder Cemetery.  In 1889 her son Johnny was laid to rest beside her in an unmarked grave.

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     "John C. Peacock was politically active in the community as well as being a land owner.  He was Justice of the Peace in Caldwell County in the late 1870s where he owned two tracts of land totaling 296 acres in adjacent Bastrop County and Caldwell County.  He was a County Commissionor in Gonzales County at the time of his death and had served as a trustee in the Waelder Farmer's Alliance.  John C. Peacock owned a farm near Waelder, a home in Waelder, and the Planter's Hotel with stables, also in Waelder.  (Editor: The Planter Hotel was formerly known as the Waelder Hotel)

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     "From John C. Peacock's photograph taken in the 1880s we see him as a tall, slender, small-boned man with blue eyes and thin hair and goatee.  In his Will, dated January 20, 1890, John asked that his children receive equal amount of his estate after his debts had been paid.  He named J.B. Hill, Jr., a friend and lawyer, as executor of his estate and guardian of his minor children.  Although John did not mention his children by name in his Will, there were four minor children: Lum, Jesse, Ora, and Josie.  In his Will John asked that Mrs. T.A. (Tempie Arminta) Bearce, his late wife's aunt, live in his home and care for his four young children.  (Mrs. Bearce was also the mother-in-law of John's daughter, Nevada Peacock Petty.)  John also asked that his second wife, Katie Foster, who was unnamed in his Will, be given certain items of furniture to compliment her own furniture.

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     "John C. Peacock died at age 50 on January 25, 1890, five days after making his Will.  He had cancer of the bowels and hemorrhaged to death at his home in Waelder.  He was laid to rest beside his first wife Edna who had died three years earlier.  John was survived by his wife Katie, seven children and six grandchildren.  Mrs. Katie Peacock returned to her own home in Luling as she had declared she would before her husband's death.

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     "J.B. Hill, Jr., executor of John C. Peacock's estate and the minor children's legal guardian, did not effectively administer the Peacock estate and give the children their rightful settlement of the estate according to their late father's wishes.  Ironically, after many years of strife, Mr. Hill became suddnly ill in October 1906 and died.  Before he died, Mrs. Bearce, who had helped raise the young children, told Mr. Hill that God was punishing him for keeping the children's inheritance for himself.  Thus he died and the children did not receive complete restitution of their inheritance although the matter was taken to court.  (Probate #1160, #1216, Gonzales, Co., Tx)

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     "At the time of his death, John C. Peacock owned the Planters Hotel with an adjacent stable and a home in Waelder.  His surviving children were to receive a share of the monthly rent money along with his widow, Katie Foster Peacock of Luling.  Charges were brought against Hill as executor for incomplete payment.  In August 1890 Hill sold the hotel at a loss as a result of a discrepancy with a pre-empted buyer who dealt with John C Peacock before his death.  This act aggravated hostilities and the court continued to side with Hill as executor of the estate.  Hill wished to resight his position but the court would not allow it.  In 1892 the seven Peacock children began selling their 1/7 shares in the estate to H.T. Hopkins and Mrs. Marry E. Hill, mother of J.B. Hill, Jr.  By June 1907 Mr. Hill's widow, Sallie Hill, had purchased these interests from the Hopkins and her mother-in-law."

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Arizona Brigade in North Texas

See a study of about fifteen CSA military units that patrolled North

Texas and Southern Indian Territory during the last 1-1/2 years of the Civil War

Founded in July 1862. John Robert Baylor founded the Arizona Brigade following a successful CSA invasion then a disastrous retreat. Some of these commanders, and men, were in more than one company of the Arizona Brigade by June 1865.

" ... It may be said that the term “Arizona Brigade” is a misnomer. It was formed for the invasion and recapture of the Confederate Territory of Arizona (which was lost to Union invaders in July 1862), and yet never once set foot in Arizona. The Regiments within the Brigade were unofficially known as “Arizona Cavalry Regiments,” and yet almost all the men within them were from Texas. And it was called the “Arizona BRIGADE,” and yet never fought together as a Brigade...its Regiments were detailed to other Brigades instead. ...". per Robert P. Perkins