Pylant Geneology

"Biographical Souvenir of the State of Texas", 1889: ELIAS T. PILANT Among the early fathers who fought for the Republic's independence were thousands born on French soil; one of the number who served as soldier in the Revolutionary War was George Pilant, a native of France, who came to the New World while it was yet under the rule of the colonial government, and settled in North Carolina. Here he lived and raised a family. One of his sons, Elisha Pilant, was born in the Old North State in 1770. Elisha was reared on the old homestead and divided his time between working on the farm and learning to be a cabinet-maker. About the year 1800 he married a Miss Cassandra Martin, a native of North Carolina, who was born in 1780. Soon after the marriage they moved to Tennessee, where they located about twenty-one miles from Nashville on what was known as Paradise Ridge. During the war with Great Britain, 1812-1815, Elisha served as a soldier in the United States service. At the close of this conflict he returned to his home in Tennessee and there gave his attention to farming. He served for several years as justice of the peace and died in 1863, after a life filled with exciting scenes characteristic of the early pioneers of Tennessee. Mrs. Pilant died in 1854. One of the surviving members of this family is Elias T. Pilant, the subject of this sketch. He was born May 14, 1821, at the old homestead twenty-one miles below Nashville, Tennessee. His early life was not marked by any unusual incidents, having been reared on the farm until fourteen years of age. He then went to Nashville, where he attended an academy and completed his literary education in his eighteenth year. From this period until twenty-two years of age he taught school. He now had arrived at the age when a young man generally begins to think of a business or profession to which he shall devote his life's labor, and it was at this time that Elias began the study of medicine. In 1845-46 he attended the Louisville (Kentucky) Medical College and graduated with high honors. He then came to Texas, located in Fort Bend county and practiced for twenty years. He then moved to Harrisburg, Harris county, where he has since resided as a medical practitioner. Dr. Pilant was married March 12, 1849, to Mrs. Mary M. Collins, a daughter of Alexander Compton, of Louisiana. They have had four children, all of whom have died. George Pilant, a son of Elisha's brother George, became noted as a soldier in the early days of Texas, both against Mexico and the Indians; was shot through one lung, but recovered and died in Houston, Texas, 1887, about seventy years of age.