A published biography of their son, Thomas Edward Pickett, reported [1]:
… Dr. Pickett was born on his father's farm four miles West of Maysville on January 11th, 1841, and was a son of Thomas J. Pickett and Margaret Madison (Campbell) Pickett, the former a native of Mason County and the latter born in Fayette County and both being representatives of sterling pioneer families of Kentucky. His father was a man of prominence and influence in Mason County and in the early day was a shipper of farm products to New Orleans. He represented Mason County in the Legislature. Dr. Pickett's grand father, John Pickett, was born in Fauquier County, Virginia and first came to Kentucky in 1789. The Pickett family are of staunch English stock as the pages of the last 300 years of history fully attest.
Dr. Pickett was the last of nine children. He was educated in the Maysville schools, finishing in the famous Rand and Richeson Seminary here, the same school at which Gen. U. S. Grant was a student. In 1865 the Doctor was graduated in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania from which he received his M. D. degree and all his professional life he has practiced his profession in Maysville, where by his humane acts and the gentle arts of his profession he has endeared himself to thousands of people, the high and the lowly.
Dr. Pickett was the first man to introduce into the United States the system of treatment of fractures by massage and mobilization. The Cincinnati Lancet-Clinic of 1903 contained a long notice of Dr. Pickett on this subject.
…
Thomas Edward Pickett, M. D., LL. D. Very appreciative notices have appeared in the public press of Dr. Pickett, recently deceased, but a fuller estimate of so distinguished a citizen should be placed on record while his memory is fresh among us. He was the son of Thomas Jefferson Pickett and Margaret Madison (Campbell) Pickett, and was born January 6, 1841, on a farm in the western part of the county. To this, in part, may be traced the great in terest and pride he always showed in Mason county and her people.Dr. Pickett came of a race of people who have taken high rank both in church and State. The Pickett's are of Huguenot derivation. Among them we find the names of Gen. George E. Pickett, the hero of Gettysburg; Col. John T. Pickett, the famous fillibuster; James C. Pickett, a lieutenant and poet, also minister to Ecuador and Peru, and Prof. James D. Pickett, the educator so well known in Kentucky. The Mason county Picketts stand in the forefront of our citizens. Dr. Pickett's grandfather, Col. John Pickett, an early settler of Mason county, was a man of force and character, having served in both branches of the legislature. His father, Thomas J. Pickett, is well remembered, not only as a success ful business man, but as a country gentleman of the old school, well read in belles lettres, and the master of a graceful English style. He, too, represented his county in the legislature. Dr. Pickett's mother was of Scotch derivation, tracing through the McDowells to the Rutherfords, and through the Campbells to the clan Argyle. In Green's "Historic Families of Kentucky," the branches of this large family, in which are so many distinguished men and women, may be found. Mrs. Pickett was decended from Judge Samuel McDowell, who presided over all the early conventions at Danville, Ky., dealing with the momentous questions of the day, the setting up of a new commonwealth of Kentucky. Judge McDowell was the father of the father of Dr. Ephriam McDowell, the pioneer in the operation of ovariotomy in all the world. Mrs. Pickett was the daughter of Rev. John Poage Campbell, the distinguished Presbyterian divine. Dr. E P. Humphrey says of him: "As a preacher he was distinguished for weight of matter, brilliant diction, the flashing of a deepset, dark blue eye, elegance of style and gracefulness of delivery." He was also a skilled writer on scientific topics.
Dr. Pickett was brought up in the Presbyterian faith, and was fond of showing the power of its Calvinistic principles in shaping so many of the great characters and crises of history. He took his academic course in the noted school of Rand and Richerson, afterwards spending four years at Centre College, Danville, Ky., from which he graduated in 1860. …
A biosketch reports [2]:
Margaret Madison Campbell, daughter of Dr. John Poage Campbell and Isabella McDowell, was the sensible, cultivated, most interesting, amiable wife of Thomas J. Pickett, of Mason county; a man of the most honorable character, of the most scrupulous and inexorable integrity, a shrewd judge of men, of acute and broad intellect; a gentleman of rare taste and varied culture. A most worthy and faithful representative of his county in the state legislature, his voluntary withdrawal from all public life deprived the state of one of its best minds. His sterling worth and generous nature were made conspicuous in vicissitudes before which a manliness less robust and true would have succumbed.
[1] Kentucky Historical Society, Bibliography of Dr. Thomas Edward Pickett of Maysville, Kentucky (1914), 7, [HathiTrust].
[2] Thomas Marshall Green, Historic Families of Kentucky (1889), 60-61, [HathiTrust], [GoogleBooks].