The PIGG-BOWMAN Family
by Wayne E. Arrington, Sr. & Family

Robert Lee "Bob" Pigg (b: 1-7-1874, d: 3-30-1932) and Laura Etta Bowman (b: 10-20-1875, d: 10-18-1966) were married in Patrick Co., VA, 1-5-1893, and had 10 children: William Flourney "W.F.", Claude, Maybell, Okley, Glennie, Lonnie, Clifford, Raymond, Wilbert and Edgar.

Bob Pigg was the son of Thomas William and Susan (Yates) Pigg of Patrick Co.,VA. The Pigg family owned a large tract of land in Virginia until the Civil War. After the war the family could not work their property as before and gave most of it away to the slaves to start their new lives. The Thomas Pigg family was broke.

Laura was the daughter of Peter and Martha (Hamm) Bowman, Jr. of Virginia, and was a member of the Tabernacle Hill Church. Laura had a brother named Will Bowman who was a well known peddler at the time, in 1916. He was murdered by robbers one night while camped along the road near Maybury in McDowell Co., WV, right in front of his young son.

Around 1900 Bob, Laura and their children left Virginia and came to Mercer Co., WV, settling in the Sandlick area. Around 1920 they moved to Montcalm near Tabernacle Hill, which at the time was mostly owned by the Bowman family.

The oldest son W. F. told a story about camping along the side of the road and close to a rail road track during one of the family's travels to West Virginia, when he was a little boy. A train came through early the next morning blowing its whistle and woke them up. The children had never seen or heard a train and it scared them into a panic. He and Maybell ran off and left Claude, the baby who was just starting to walk, and he lost one of his new shoes in the excitement. W. F. and Maybell got into trouble for not taking proper care of the baby.

The family went back to Virginia briefly around 1927 for unknown reasons, but returned to Browning Lambert Mountain where they bought a piece of property and built a house on top of the hill. They had to carry water from the spring under the hill. Bob farmed and timbered the land and worked other jobs for additional money.

Shortly after their new house was built, Bob found his way off the mountain in the rain with a ham from a freshly killed hog across his shoulders to trade for some groceries in Montcalm. He was already sick and caught pneumonia and died a short time later. Laura continued to live in the little house, raised her children, and then died there years later.