From Proud Heritage, Volume III by DCPA. This 352 page hardcover book is available online.
Uzziel Baggett, a widower, and his family took up lands in what is now Dallas County as Peters colonists in 1844. His headright lay within the present limits of the city of Cedar Hill. Uzziel Baggett was born 14 March 1797 in Martin County, North Carolina, the son of Allen and Elizabeth (Allen) Baggett. Allen Baggett had been a private in Captain Quinn’s Company, Colonel Shepard’s Regiment of the North Carolina Line during the Revolution. Uzziel Baggett migrated to Walton County, Georgia, sometime be fore 13 August 1819, when he was named to a panel from which the first petit jury of Walton County was drawn. Later, he was joined there by his parents and most of his siblings. In Walton County, the Baggetts were neighbors of a family named Collins. Both Uzziel and a brother married Collins daughters.
By the 1830 census, Uzziel and his wife, Sarah “Sally”, had moved to Campbell County, Georgia, and had moved to Marshall County, Alabama by the 1840 census. After the untimely death of Sarah, Uzziel and most of his children moved westward to Texas. His children were: Nancy (married Ashley James), Bethena (married Henry Wyand), Priscilla Ann (married James Billingsley), Seaborn J., Elizabeth (married Joseph Munden), Milbury Pemetta (married W. Jasper Boyd), Willis R. (married (1) Elizabeth Rhodes, (2) Mary A. Bryson), Allen R. (married Susan Harper), Sarah (married James Robinson), and Sabell (married Alfred Rucker). In Dallas County, Uzziel Baggett patented 640 acres in 1855 and had patented another 640 acre tract in northern Ellis County by 1860. Soon after coming to Dallas County, Uzziel married his second wife, Emily Munden. That marriage was childless.
Uzziel Baggett apparently prospered in Texas, raising cotton, grain (rye, oats, corn, and wheat), cattle, and hogs. He even pursued apiculture, the inventory of his estate (Ellis County) listing at least 14 bee gums (hives). This inventory reveals a good deal about the lifestyle enjoyed by Uzziel Baggett and his family. At the time of the accounting, his estate included 115 bushels of wheat, 60 bushels of rye, 875 bushels of com, 1,800 bushels of oats, 41 cattle, 17 horses, 615 pounds of bacon, 2,000 pounds of cotton seed and an extensive list of tools, household, and personal items. Other interesting items on the inventory were a buggy, a sleigh, a farm wagon, two clocks, a silver watch, two bells, two kegs of lead (for bullets?), and a powder gourd (presumably the one that his father carried in the American Revolution and that is still in the hands of Uzziel’s descendants). According to Hilord Bedford’s Memoirs (1926), Uzziel Baggett’s one-room house in early years was situated near the Dallas-Austin highway and was operated as an inn to accommodate travelers on that road.
Uzziel Baggett died on 9 February 1873 and is buried in Waxahachie City Cemetery beside wife Emily (1808-1868).
By Jerry J. Flook, Forney, Texas
