William Raiford Pickett

William Raiford Pickett

• Father: James Pickett
• Mother: Martha Terry

• William Raiford Pickett was born circa 1777 in Anson County, North Carolina, upon the Pee Dee River, where his parents had removed some time before the Revolutionary war from Caroline County, Virginia.
• He married Frances Amelia Dickson, daughter of William Dickson, circa 1800.
• William Raiford Pickett and Frances Amelia Dickson appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1850 in Hester, Autauga County, Alabama. Other members of the household included Eliza Baker.
• He was a farmer, according to the 1850 census.
• William Raiford Pickett became a widower at the 4 August 1850 death of his wife.
• The following appeared on 12 August 1850 in the Tri-Weekly Alabama Journal: Mrs. Fanny Amelia Pickett, wife of Col. Wm. R. Pickett, died on the 4th inst. at Cedar Grove, Autauga county, Alabama, aged seventy years and four months. She was born in Duplin county, North Carolina. Her father, Col. Wm. Dickson, commanded a regiment of whigs, during the revolutionary war, and participated in conducting several severe engagements, in one of which his horse was shot from under him and a ball shattered his leg. He was clerk of the court of Duplin county for the long period of forty years, and during the struggle for American independence he and his neighbors conveyed the records and public papers to a small island in Coshen swamp, where they buried them in a copper distillery kettle. The tories and British overran the country and furned down the court house. When the war was over, Col. Dickson disinterred the records and found them in an admirable state of preservation.
       Mrs. Pickett, the subject of this notice, removed with her husband to Alabama in the spring of 1818, and where her amiable disposition and charitable heart soon made her an object of esteem with all the early emigrants. She is believed never to have had an enemy. N. L.
• William Raiford Pickett died on 20 September 1850 in Autauga County, Alabama.
• A short biographical sketch of William Raiford Pickett appears in Alabama, Her History, Resources, War Record, and Public Men, from 1540 to 1872.

• Last Edited: 18 Jul 2014