Noxubee County, MS Biographies
Noxubee County, MS Biographies
Peter P. Pitchlynn was born in Noxubee County, Mississippi, January 30, 1806. His father, a white man, was the Government interpreter for the Choctaw Nation, having been first commissioned as such by President Washington. Thirsting for an education before any schools were established among the Choctaw, he was sent to Tennessee, where he attended an academy, and afterward the University of Nashville, from which institution he graduated. Returning home from school once as a boy, he found his people making a new treaty with the Government, of which he so strongly disapproved that he refused to shake hands with Gen. Andrew Jackson, the Government commissioner. Although he afterward became a very warm friend of General Jackson, he never became reconciled to the treaty. In 1828 he was selected by the Government as the leader of a Choctaw party to explore the proposed Indian Territory and make peace with the Osage. Although but little more than a youth at the time, he discharged the duty thus imposed with a degree of courage and diplomacy that would have done credit to a man many years older. At the beginning of the Civil War he was in Washington on public business and assured President Lincoln that he hoped to hold his people neutral. He remained loyal to the Union throughout the War, though three of his sons were in the Confederate Army. As a result of the War, he lost a large amount of property, including 100 slaves. He was a friend of Henry Clay and of Charles Dickens. The latter described him as a man of great physical beauty and a natural orator. Pitchlynn died in the city of Washington in 1881 and was buried in the Congressional cemetery, Gen. Albert Pike pronouncing the eulogy. [A History of Oklahoma by Joseph B. Thoburn and Isaac M. Holcomb, Doub & Company, San Francisco, 1908, Page 99 - Submitted by Jim Vandermark]