Because of the number of responses to my earlier posting (and requests for further information), I'm replying to the entire list: The minutes of the Virginia Point Methodist Episcopal Church (South) of August 10, 1867, include a notice that Brother Ben Mack Williams "asks leave to state that he was with Bro. Michael Pitman, a local Deacon & Member of our Class during his last illness." There follows an obituary notice and memoir: "Brother Michael Pitman was born in the State of Kentucky Jan. 29th, 1805. Married his first wife Jan. 5th, 1825 who died and was buried near the Pitman's Chapel in Grayson County, Texas, June 5, 1854. He was married to Mrs. Elizabeth J. Wilkins, his surviving companion Dec. 11th, 1855. He professed the Christian religion in early life, united with the Methodist Episcopal Church and became a local preacher while young. When the Church divided as a matter of conscience he went with the Methodist Episcopal Church South and served at her altars as a faithful and pious minister until the close of his earthly toils. During his last illness he spoke frequently of his demise and even before friends or physicians thought his symptoms at all dangerous, seemed deeply impressed with the belief that he would never recover. He prayed and had his friends pray with him several times for a readiness to live or die and for an entire resignation to the Divine will. This pearl of great price he professed to find and seemed several times when I was present perfectly happy in view of death. He closed his toils and sufferings in peace with God and man about 7 O'clock A.M. April 25th, 1867." Virginia Point Methodist was (and still is) located about five miles north of Bells on the Grayson/Fannin County line. (It's one of the oldest continually operating congregations in North Texas.) The congregation still meets in the building that was erected in the mid-1860s, and it's likely that Michael Pitman drove some of the nails that built the church. There's a cemetery behind the church, and you'll find a listing of the "residents" on Susan's wonderful Fannin County GenWeb pages. My recent book, "Scatterlings: Blair Williams & Turner to Texas, 1858-1873" contains a chapter that describes the split of the Methodist Episcopal Church, how Virginia Point Methodist Episcopal Church (South) was built, and much more about the settlement of Grayson/Fannin Counties in the 1860s and 1870s. (There are chapters on units mustered out of Sherman and Bonham for Civil War service, the founding of the Union League, the typhoid epidemics and more.) "Scatterlings" is hardbound, 184 pages, and available directly from me for $20 (plus $4.75 shipping and handling). (The Fannin County GenWeb pages include a sample chapter, if you follow the links under "Local Books for Sale".)