The Sackett family originated in The Fens of Cambridgeshire in East Anglia. In the late 1500's the patriarch of the family, Barnabas Sackett, became a merchant captain and eventually settled with his wife Abigail (née Tempany) in what would become the borderlands of North Carolina and Tennessee. The family quickly divided into three clans, sired by several of their sons: the "Smoky Mountain Sacketts", "Cumberland Gap Sacketts", and "Clinch Mountain Sacketts". There are also Flatland Sacketts, but they were rarely heard from. 

 

     There are numerous colorful characters in the family history, ranging from horse thieves to lawmen, with cattle drovers, ranchers, gunfighters and politicians in between.    Despite some of the more shady characters in the family tree, it was ingrained in all to ride with the law, never against it.  But no matter which side of the law one found oneself on, there was one trait all Sacketts had in common:  that of loyalty to the family and helping the family when beset by foes. "When you step on the toes of one Sackett, they all come running," was a common enough saying amongst the clans.

 

     There was also the deadly Sackett-Higgins feud in Tennessee lasted over seventy years and ended sometime in the late 1870s when, as it's said, "The last Higgins died with his gun in his hand, but he died."  There isn't a Sackett that doesn't know the tale.

 

     The Sacketts are fighters, through and through and where they don't look for trouble, they often enough find it.  When it comes, they don't back down from it either.   Some take to it a little more eagerly than others.  It has been said that "ain't one of them Clinch Mountain Sacketts wouldn't climb a tree to fight a bear."