H.J. KIVETT, farmer and stock dealer, was born in Randolph County, N.C., October 27, 1847, the son of Lorenzo D. and Eliza (Johnson) KIVETT, the former of English stock born in the above county, in 1817, and the latter born in 1823. Both were Missionary Baptists.
Our subject, the second of four children (three now living), went to Baltimore, when eighteen years old, then to Indianapolis, Memphis, Knoxville, and finally returned home and worked on the farm for $10 per month.
March 8, 1868, Minerva, a daughter of Jessie and Margaret ROGERS, born September 11, 1841, became his wife. Their children are James P., Margaret A., Minnie B., Jesse and Ollie, David A. and Malissa, deceased.
After renting land our subject bought seventy-five acres, and three years later bought a farm in Union County, which he paid for in nine years by farming, trading, contracting, and as watchman at the zinc mines. He then sold and returned to Claiborne County purchasing his present farm of 700 acres, greatly improved. In February, 1869, he joined Company A., of Brownlow’s militia, as third sergeant, and stationed at Pulaski, Parksville, and Nashville. He is a Republican. In 1887 he went West to buy land; after looking at the western country he returned to make Claiborne County his home.
Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of from Twenty-Five to Thirty Counties of East Tennessee. Chicago: Goodspeed, 1887.