Ricketts Ancestors

Jacob Duvall II married Elizabeth Ricketts, daughter of Peter and Mary (surname unknown) Ricketts in Nelson County, KY on 22 June 1802.  According to census records Elizabeth was born in Pennsylvannia about 1782.

Elizabeth's father, Peter, and presumably her mother and and some of her siblings, were in Nelson County, KY no later than 1792 when Peter appears on a tax list as 1 white male over 21 with no land.  In 1796 Peter purchased 400 acres of land on Wilson's Creek from the Hawn's.  He appears on the 1800 tax list for Nelson County and the 1810 census for Bullitt County (Bullitt County was carved out of Nelson County, KY in 1797; his land straddled the Bullitt/Nelson County line).  He is believed to have died about 1814 to 1817.

It is my belief that Peter was probably born in Pennsylvania, and that he is the Peter Ricketts (also spelled Records, Rickets, Rickitts, Ricords) who enlisted 26 February 1778 in Col. David Hall's Company of the Delaware Regiment (Delaware broke off from Pennsylvania in 1776).  He was sick from July through September 1778 at "Brunswic", and again from May through July 1780 in "Jersey State" (though on May 2, 1780 listed as "sick at Baskin Ridge").  He deserted 1 January 1781.  These dates mesh perfectly with the birth of his children:  Jonathan, the oldest, was born probably in 1776 either in Virginia or Pennsylvania (the lines between Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia were very "fluid"); Polly and Elizabeth were born about 1782.  Also, both a Zachariah and a Robert Ricketts served in the Eigth Battalion of the Cumberland County (Pennsylvania) Militia; Zachariah SR. & JR. were on a list of tithables for Nelson County, KY in 1791.  "Zack Ricket" (presumably JR) married Sarah Phillips in Nelson Co., KY 15 Mar 1792, but was on the Washington County, KY tax list (Washington Co. is adjacent to Nelson County) for 1792.  Robert Ricketts married Elenor Allison in Montgomery County, MD in 1778 and later settled in Mason County, KY no later than 1790 (I believe that Zachariah SR also, after Nelson County, settled in Mason Co. as there is a Zacharia Ricketts on the 1800 tax list for Mason County); Elenor's parents however settled in Bullitt County, KY as evidenced by a will probated there in 1808 leaving part of Enoch Allison's estate to his 3 granddaughters who were the daughters of Robert Ricketts and his deceased wife Elenor Allison.  There were 2 other Ricketts in Nelson County during this early time period:  one was a Shippy Allen Rickets who was the grantee on a 1786  land grant for 500 acres in Nelson County (no other record can be found for him); and in 1788 a Marg T Ricketts married Michael Myers in Bardstown, Nelson Co., KY..  I am wondering if Marg T. Ricketts might have been the widow of Shippy Allen Rickets?

Further research needs to be done to find out how/if these Ricketts are related but there is just too much circumstantial evidence pointing to Peter being the Revolutionary War private who deserted from the Delaware regiment, and to him being somehow related to Zachariah and Robert Ricketts.