My second great-grandfather Edgar Doke Pigg was a bit of a troublemaker. While I don’t know much about him, Alabama Convict Records list him being in jail for illegally making liquor and having a still in his possession, and that was when he was in his early 50s. His arrest was after prohibition (1920 – 1933).

His sentence began on March 30, 1935. He didn’t even serve the minimum term of one year, one day. He was released December 14, 1935.  Interestingly enough, his son William was also arrested the same day, received the same sentence, and was released on the same day. It seems moonshine was a family business! 🙂

Edgar Doke Pigg, often called “Doke” or “E.D”, was born on May 22, 1882 to William Stokely Pigg and Sarah Madeline Dyer in Kelso, Lincoln County, Tennessee. At the age of 22, on May 15, 1905, he married Minnie Lee Pylant in Lincoln County. They had five children before they divorced:

William Rufus Pigg 1906–1961
Ernest Durward Pigg 1908–1953
John K Pigg 1910–1957
Ola Mai Pigg 1912–1973
Sarah Pigg 1916–2012

His US WWI Draft Registration in 1917/1918 described him as tall, medium build, black hair and blue eyes.

By 1920, he was divorced from Minnie. He moved to Lauderdale County, Alabama, where he was a worker on the Wilson Dam. Construction began on the Wilson Dam between Lauderdale and Colbert counties in Alabama in 1918 and finished in 1924.

He remarried to a lady named Ellen Cooper on May 6, 1922 (Source: Ancestry marriage records). Ellen was living Florence and Doke in Pride, Colbert County, Alabama. Here is the newspaper article announcing their marriage certificate in the May 12, 1922 edition of the Florence Herald:

According to their marriage record, Ellen Cooper Pigg was born in 1904, making her 18 at the time of their marriage. The marriage record says Doke was born in 1901, but he was really born in 1882, making him 39 at the time of their marriage.

I recently found Doke and Ellen on the 1930 census. They were incorrectly called “Ed Pegg” and “Elen Pegg”. That’s why they never came up in my search results. Ugh. They lived in Sheffield, Colbert County, Alabama. Doke worked as a laborer at a railroad shop. No children from this marriage.

I have tried to find Ellen Cooper before and after her marriage to Doke, but I can not find her listed on any records besides Doke’s death record and the 1930 census.

Doke died on October 5, 1938 when he drowned in Pickwick Lake. His death notice in the local newspaper is below.

SHEFFIELD MAN DROWNS

After having been missing from his home in Sheffield for several days, the body of E.D. Pigg, aged 56, was found floating in Pickwick Lake Saturday morning, north from the mouth of Spring Creek, on Seven Mile Island, and a verdict of “accidental drowning” was returned by W. R. Chisholm, Jr., Lauderdale county coroner.

Pigg was last seen Wednesday when reports said he had gone to run his trot-line.

He is buried in Guy Cemetery, Tuscumbia, Colbert County, Alabama. Here is a link to his FindAGrave.