My Genealogy Hound

Hugh A. Pickett is another of Hampton’s young and enterprising business men, and was born in this county in 1855. His parents, W. J. and Mary W. (Harris) Pickett, natives of North Carolina, had a family of seven children, our subject being the youngest. His father moved to Alabama and was engaged in farming until 1849, when he came to Arkansas, settling in Union County, where he bought a farm and made his home for three years. He then came to this county and bought a farm of 320 acres of wild land, and at once commenced an extensive scale of improvements, clearing 200 acres. He soon had a comfortable home. He enlisted in the Old Man’s company, Confederate army in 1865. In 1867 he moved to the town of Hampton and engaged in merchandising, opening a general store. He had one of the largest stores in the county, and did a very extensive trade for several years. He continued here about six years, and then, in 1872, was elected county and probate judge, in which capacity he served for four years, and in 1876 returned to his farm, where he died in 1878. The subject of this sketch was reared in the town of Hampton, and received his education in the public schools here, and also at Clark’s Academy, Berryville, Carroll County, which he attended for one year. He then engaged as book-keeper until 1884, when he was elected to his present office (circuit clerk of Calhoun County), was re-elected in 1886 and in 1888 without opposition. In 1889 he started a drug and grocery store, and in 1889 Mr. Tomlinson joined under the firm name of Pickett & Tomlinson. Mr. Pickett and sister owned a good farm of 300 acres, which adjoins the town; about seventy-five acres are under cultivation. He was married in 1875 to Miss Virgie Tobin, a native of Clark County, Ark, and this union has been blessed in the birth of five children, viz.: David, William, Francis, Lennie, and Hugh and Virgie (twins, born in February. 1889). The family are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of which Mr. Pickett is steward and recording secretary.