John Pickett

John Thomas Pickett was born near Lowville, Ontario, Canada, to Andrew T. Pickett (15 Jan 1834 - 1 Dec 1920) and Mary Ann McLaren (13 Apr 1832 - 3 Dec 1875). [His 1932 delayed birth certificate stated Feb. 23rd, although an earlier letter from his father Andrew to his daughter Octavia had said the 17th.] He moved with his family in late 1870 to Vermillion, Clay County, South Dakota. There he learned the harness making trade from his brother-in-law, David Aldona Hopkins (husband of Anna Mary Pickett, and father of Harry Lloyd Hopkins). That was a skill he carried with him. He married first in 1893 to Electa Cross Chadwick, who died in or near Hastings, Nebraska, shortly after a daughter, Octavia Electa Pickett was born 17 June 1895. At the start of the "Spanish War," he enlisted as a saddler and joined other American soldiers, who went to San Francisco and on to the Philippines. He subsequently served in the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, and upon returning to the Philippines, began a company associated with harness making, leather goods, rope and mining. He prospered in the Manila area, and later owned a large home at 150 Valenzuela. He remarried in 1914 to Jesusa Herranz (1896 - 1985). They had twelve children. Surviving children included: John Andrew, Felisa Maggie, Mary Rufina, Charles Aldona, Lucy, Carmen, Ernest McLaren, and Kathryn Milagros. He had a deathbed interview with a Manila newspaper reporter in 1939, in which he himself found it ironic he never was a US citizen. He is buried in El Cementario del Norte at Manila. (This information comes primarily from a genealogy entitled, "The Picketts of Lowville, And Points East, South and West...," assembled and privately issued by John T. Pickett's grandson, the late John Roland Scott, son of Octavia Electa Pickett, John T.'s first child.)

Sources:

• http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=117733951
• John Thomas Pickett's Birth Certificate: https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1-159392-167730-20?cc=1784...