Aug. 13, 1810

Albert James Pickett was born on this day in 1810. At the age of 8, he moved with his father, William R. Pickett, to the frontier of Autauga County, ceded to the United States by the Creek Indians in the Treaty of Fort Jackson only four years earlier. William Pickett built a home near Autaugaville and a mill building and traders post on Swift Creek. Growing up, Albert Pickett befriended many of the Creek and frontier traders who frequented his father’s store. From them he began to piece together the early history of the state, which he later put into writing. He wrote about science, agriculture and history. His definitive work was his “History of Alabama and Incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi from the Earliest Period,” which was published in 1851. Last year, NewSouth Books released “The Annotated Pickett’s History of Alabama” in honor of the state’s bicentennial, which will be marked in December of this year. Pickett was working on a comprehensive history of the Southwest at the time of his death.

Read more at Wikipedia. 

Figh-Pickett House, Montgomery, April 19, 1934. (W.N. Manning, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

(NewSouth Books)

Examples of annotations in the 2018 edition of “The Annotated Pickett’s History of Alabama.” (NewSouth Books)

Examples of annotations in the 2018 edition of “The Annotated Pickett’s History of Alabama.” (NewSouth Books)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.