Pittsville

Pittsville was located three miles north of Fulshear at the junction of what is now Farm Road 359 with Hunt-Jordan Road in north Fort Bend County. The settlement began to grow when early plantation owners, finding it impossible to live in the swampy, though fertile, Brazos River bottoms, built their homes on the high prairie lands away from the threat of floods. The settlement was named for the Pitts family, who operated a store and distributed the mail. All the people up the Brazos River who did not get their mail at Richmond were included in Pittsville. The 1860 census listed some 240 people living in Pittsville. Farming and stock raising were the main occupations, but also listed were wagoners, carpenters, schoolteachers, a brick mason, an engineer, a minister, a merchant, a clerk, a physician, a wheelwright, a machinist, an artesian-well borer, and other workers. As the years passed the town had several general stores, as well as a blacksmith shop, a millinery shop, a photo studio, and a two-story school or academy. Pittsville acquired a post office on May 31, 1870, with Mrs. Lucy Upton and postmistress. The post office was discontinued on June 15, 1889, because the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad had bypassed the community, the town of Fulshear had been established, and the people of Pittsville were moving to Fulshear to be near the railroad. The last residents of Pittsville were Mrs. Alice (J. R.) Nesbitt and her daughter, Doris, who moved away in 1947. Since that time the only evidences of Pittsville are an abandoned cistern and a clump of trees.