RECORDS: Benjamin Pickerell, Larue County, KY
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Submitted by: Rick Pickerell <kf4stl@peoplepc.com>
Date: Nov 17, 2001
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This information was taken from the publication "Cross-Kin, a Family venture (Pickerell Peers)",
 vol2, #1 pp 7,8.

From Mrs. Marguerite Cassell:

This is an item concerning Benjamin Pickerell, b. 1797, probably in Hardin County 
Ky., son of Samuel Pickerell.

The letter was written October 10, 1929 by John Mikels, age 87 at the time, Montgomery 
County, In, son of Joel and Mary (Pickerell) Mikels and grandson of  William Pickerell. 
It was written to "Faun" who is now Helen Cooper Wymer of Lafayette, In. He was her great 
uncle and my great great uncle; also he is Hazel Mikels Gibbs grandfather (as discovered 
through Pickerell Peers).

This is just a paragraph, because the letter was is very long, some of it personal to "Faun" 
and also because there is no punctuation  and the spelling is bad. I am editing the punctuation
and spelling a little for clarity.

The trip was taken in the late 1860’s.

Marguerite C.

The edited letter:

I looked over the map and it was real interesting. When I got to Kentucky, I got off the 
train at Lebanon. It was 8 miles to Raywick. I got there just at sundown. I inquired for a 
man by the name of Cravens. They didn’t know anything of me, nor I didn’t know anything of 
them, only I had been told of him. I told him who I was and he wouldn’t let me go--- made 
me stay another day and night. Then we went to my uncles-- it was about 5 miles; you will 
see it on the map-- it is Attilla. Now, that post office is kept in the house where uncle 
Ben Pickerell lived. When I was there in going to my uncles, I stopped at a cousin’s and 
took dinner. They had a girl about 16 years old.  We saddled up two horses and started to 
uncle Ben’s. We had to go up a mountain, and when we got some distance, I could look down 
one side and it looked like it was a mile down to the bottom. I jumped off my horse. That 
was funny for her but I was scared. I stayed there six weeks and had a wonderful time. 
Attilla is in Larue County. There is where Lincoln was born at Hodgenville-- it is 12 miles. 
When I went home my father told me I ought to have gone to Bardstown (to see) the cathedral 
there.....

{St. Joseph’s Cathedral, the first Catholic cathedral built west of the alleghenies in 1819.}

Marguerite then writes that in 1976 she and Helen Faun Cooper followed his route to that 
part of Kentucky and met some of Benjamin’s descendants through his son,  Stephen. She also 
writes that the term "uncle" must have been used loosely, because John’s grandfather was 
William Pickerell, not Samuel. It is likely that Samuel is William’s younger brother.

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