Perhaps no Palo Pinto County resident has more fifth and sixth generations of ancestors here than Adele (Dell) and Cindy Turner, children of Dorothy Edmondson Turner.  They are the sixth generation of Hittsons; the fifth generation of Browns; fifth generation of Edmondsons; sixth generation of Whatleys and the fifth generation of Hess.

Jess Hittson and his family moved to Palo Pinto County in 1855; two years before the county was organized and the name has been identified with the cattle industry in west Texas for many years.  They settled on the Brazos on land which is still owned by members of the family.  Mr. Hittson was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, September 15, 1801, and died in this county October 15, 1861.  He and Mary (Polly) Beck were married in Tennessee and she died here in 1879 at the age of 81.  Both are buried at the Hittson Cemetery.  Before coming to Texas, they lived for a time in Mississippi and while living there, their children were born, then they lived in Rusk County from 1834 until they came here in 1855.

Hittson children were: John, who married Selina Brown, daughter of Earl Anderson Brown, and they left this county before, 1897, settling in Colorado; William B. Hittson who married in 1854 in Rusk County (before coming here), Martha Brown and they came here the next year.  Their children were Annie, who married Elijah Maddox; Jack, who married Maggie Duff; Mary, who married Stith Edmondson; Jennie, who married John Millsap; Roy who married Nellie Little; Lou who married Charles Bowen; Nannie, who married T. Brown; Willie, who married Walter Hogan; Mattie, who married first, Doss Hightower, secondly, Sam Tarbert; Betty, who married William Alexander Moore.

After the death of William Hittson's wife, he married Mrs. J. B. Young of Sweetwater and they had a daughter, Adele.

Edmondson history in the county reads very much like that of the Hittsons.  W. O. Edmondson was born in Jasper County, Georgia, in 1819, and married Nancy Malone before leaving there to live in Chattanooga County in 1852 before coming to Palo Pinto County in 1855.  Their son, Stith Edmondson, preceded them as a resident of this county by several years, having come in 1871 and locating on the Brazos River.  He was the only son of his parents who came to Texas, the others remaining in Georgia.  Daughters of the family who came to Texas were Charlie Lee, who married James Robert Gilbert; Lou, who married John Beavers; Fannie, who married Russell Daniel; and Dale, who married William Daniel.  Most of the descendants of these couples live around Mineral Wells.

Stith Edmondson was sheriff of Palo Pinto County and his father was sheriff of Jasper County, Georgia, before coming here.  Then, a son of Stith, John, was sheriff of this county for several years.

Reece Edmondson, son of Stith and Mary Hittson Edmondson, married Adele Hess and they are the parents of Dorothy Edmondson Turner, mother of Adele and Cindy Turner.