The Formation of Pickett County

During the Civil War, Pickett County was in parts of Fentress and Overton Counties.

Lem C. Wright, from this area was a lieutenant in the Union Army under Captain Rufus Dowdy. He was elected as a state representative thirteen years after the end of the war, in 1878, and in time for the area to get back to some sort of normalcy.

During his term in the Civil War he spent some time in Smith County where he possibly became acquainted with H.L. Pickett and his father. H.L. Pickett represented Wilson County in the state legislature.

Constitutionally no citizen of Tennessee should be over a days travel or 11 miles from the county seat. A radius of 11 miles was drawn from Livingston and from Jamestown. What was left over went into the new county. The eastern neck was left because it needed to be enough territory to meet the constitutional guidelines.

Representative Wright and the house determined to honor H.L. Pickett by naming the county after him. It seems that he had done some previous work in alleviating some of the debt that was assessed upon Tennessee during the Civil War. The only connection that H.L. Pickett had to the area was possibly his relationship to Mr. Wright. It was determined to name the county seat Wrightsville. The bill passed the house in 1879 but when it got to the senate a Senator Byrd sent it back to the house and told them he would see that it passed as long as they named the county seat Byrdstown after him. Byrdstown was positioned in the geographic center of the county.

Although a Democrat and a slaveholder, Senator Byrd had been a Colonel in the Union army. He had done all he could to try to keep the State from seceding from the Union. It was determined that he would be honored by naming the county seat Byrdstown. The bill was sent back to the House but the legislature only met every two years back then and it was not formally passed and Pickett county was not official until 1881.