My Genealogy Hound

THOMAS J. PICKETT was born in Louisville, Kentucky, March 17, 1821, and is a son of William and Mildred (Johnson) Pickett. Both of the parents are natives of Virginia, and the father served in the War of 1812. Thomas J. is the third in a family of eight children, namely— William, Mary, Thomas J., Mildred, Martha, and three who died in infancy. In 1834 our subject left Louisville, Ky., the place of his birth, and went to Peoria, Ill., to learn the printer’s trade, but returned in a few months to Louisville and was engaged as a clerk in a shoe store for one year, and then returned to Peoria, Ill., and resumed the printer’s trade. In the spring of 1837 he joined a company of men going to Oregon, but finding them uncongenial associates, he left them in the Indian Territory and returned to Peoria, Ill., again took up his trade as a printer, and leased the Tazewell Reporter office and edited The Reporter, a whig paper, during the campaign of 1840.

In the fall of 1840 he married Miss Louisa Bailey, a native of Maryland. This union was blessed with five children, namely— Horace, editor of the Akron Pioneer Press, of Akron, Col.; George B., editor of the News, of Fort Morgan, Col.; Charles, a compositor on the Catholic Telegraph, St. Joe, Mo.; Thomas J., Jr., editor of the Gazette, of Ashland, Nebr., and State senator from that district; and Mildred, wife of Mr. Terrell, a prosperous merchant of Paducah, Ky. His first wife died in Chester county, Pa., in 1854, and in 1855 Mr. Pickett married Miss Elizabeth Hoyt, of Batavia, N. Y., and by this union has had three children, namely— Harriet, now Mrs. Guthrie, of Lincoln, Nebr.; Mary B., now Mrs. Boswell, of Kentucky, and William L., chief clerk in the freight office of the B. & M. R. R., in Lincoln, Nebr.

In 1850 Mr. Pickett started the first daily paper in Peoria, Ill., which came to a sudden termination by the office being destroyed by fire the same year. He afterwards owned and published a number of papers. At the breaking out of the war he was editing The Rock Island Register. He gave his time to the cause of the Union and raised a company for the Sixty-ninth regiment and was appointed its lieutenant-colonel. After they were mustered out he recruited for the Sixteenth Illinois cavalry. He was then authorized to raise a regiment which became the One Hundred and Thirty-second Illinois, and was appointed colonel of the same. At the close of the war he received a certificate of thanks and honorable discharge, signed by President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton. Returning from the war he located in Paducah, Ky., and established a newspaper there which he named The Register. While in Paducah he was clerk of the United States district court and postmaster at two different times. In 1878 he went to Nebraska City, Nebr., and in connection with his three sons established The Sun, a daily paper. From Nebraska City he moved to Lincoln and leased the office of the Globe and there published a daily paper called The Capital. In 1882 he moved to Bloomington, Nebr., and there published The Guard, until the office was destroyed by fire in 1890. He then moved to Riverton in the same county and purchased the Enterprise, which he published under the name of The Guard.

He has been a Mason for forty-three years and during that time has served as master of lodges at Peoria and Rock Island, Ill., and Paducah, Ky. He was also elected grand master in Illinois in 1851 and 1852, and grand master of Masons in Kentucky in 1872. He has filled many honorable positions during his life, having been state senator from Rock Island, Ill., from 1860 to 1864. He was a delegate to the national convention that nominated Fremont and was also a delegate to the national convention that nominated Grant. He was the first president of the Illinois Press Association and served three terms as president of the Republican Valley Press Association.

As will be seen from his ancestral record. Col. Pickett is a Virginian, and as such possesses all the genial and hospitable characteristics of his ancestry. His love of the union called him to assist in suppressing the rebellion, and he, with his two sons, Horace and George, were “Patriots to the manner born.” His sons, Horace and George, were both members of Company H, Thirty-seventh Illinois volunteer infantry.