Biography - Thomas G. Pickett

THOMAS G. PICKETT, although just in the prime of life, has made his way to the front ranks among the energetic farmers of Bossier Parish, and owing to the attention he has always paid to each minor detail he has accumulated a fair share of this world's goods. He was born in the parish in which he is now living, his birth occurring in 1846, and was the eleventh of twelve children born to Nathan and Catherine (McIntire) Pickett, who were born in South Carolina, but were married in Mississippi, and from that State came to Bossier Parish, La., first settling in the Point, but afterward in different parts of this parish. Mr. Pickett was a worthy tiller of the soil, and died in 1855, his wife having passed to her long home two years earlier, both members of the Christian Church. Thomas G. Pickett inherits Scotch and Irish blood of his father, and his youth was spent on the latter's plantation in Louisiana, his education being received in Yazoo County, Miss. At the age of sixteen years he joined Company E., Twenty-eighth Mississippi Cavalry, and was in all the engagements of the Tennessee campaign and the Georgia and Atlanta campaigns, receiving a wound in the engagement at Atlanta. He surrendered at Gainesville, Ala., in May, 1865, then spent the following year in Mississippi, at the end of which time he returned to Bossier Parish, where he was married in 1874 to Miss Eula, daughter of Sidney and Sallie Pope, who came thither from Bossier Parish before the war. Mr. Pope died, however, in Texas during the war, but his widow is now living in this parish, the widow of James D. McDade. Mr. Pickett was so unfortunate as to lose his wife in 1880, she having borne him two sons, one son now living. Since his marriage Mr. Pickett has resided on his present farm of 1,400 acres, of which about 475 acres are under cultivation, two-thirds of which he has cleared himself. The most of his property has been obtained by his own efforts, and the cotton he annually raises, which amounts to about 300 bales, brings him in a handsome sum for his labor. For some time he was engaged in merchandising with E. S. Dortch, but since 1889 he has been following this calling on his own account, his establishment being located on his plantation and is well fitted up. His wife was a member of the Methodist Church.

Contributed 29 Aug 2020 by Norma Hass, extracted from Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana, published in 1890, pages 143-144.