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Vevay Reveille, March 26, 1876

Mrs. Rhoda Picket.

It is very pleasant for its to sit beside those who come down to us from the generations of the past and listen to their rehearsal of the trials, privations, dangers and pleasures, of those who lived pioneer lives. Those who now enter cite tillable fields and conformable houses in the country, as well as those we enjoy the conveniences and pleasures of village or town life can not fully appreciate the difficulties that opposed those who first came into this country.

We had very few of these veterans living with us. Most of them have nobly served their generations and been gathered to their fathers. We are reminded that the number of those who represent the earlier days of oar country, is rapidly growing less.

Mrs. Rhoda Pickett who is living with her daughter. Mrs. Moxley, in Vevay, is one of those who still lives to speak to us of those whose names have gone into the history of the country, with whom in “the days that tried men’s souls,” she mingled and knew.

She was born in Caroline County, Va., in 1792, and with her parents removed to Kentucky, near Lexington in 1794. Churches were few in those days. At David’s Fork, there was a Baptist Church, to which the great and good man, Jeremiah Vardeman, preached, whose name now is among the honored of the past. In 1810 Mrs. P. joined this Church under the labors of this godly man who was among the first who preached in the “dark and bloody ground. She married William Pickett in 1811 with whom she lived 62 years. They removed to this county in 1825. She joined the Church at Mt. Sterling, there being none in Vevay at that time. Her husband united with the Baptist Church in, Vevay in 1840, then she transferred her membership to this Church, and is still, as she ever has been, a consistent member.

She is the mother of nine children, five of whom are yet living. Her husband died in 1873 at the advanced age of 86 years. She has been blind for several years. She is well versed in the Scriptures, and takes great pleasure in quoting those passages that bring out the substitutionary work of Christ. She has deep religious convictions, and the consequence is often engaged in talking of her religious experience. She is now 84 years old. May she possess peace and plenty.
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