Editing Timothy Pickering (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Coat of Arms of Timothy Pickering.svg|175px|thumb|left|Coat of Arms of Timothy Pickering]]
Pickering was born in [[Salem, Massachusetts]] to Deacon Timothy and Mary Wingate Pickering.  He was one of nine children and the younger brother of John Pickering (not to be confused with the [[John Pickering (judge)|New Hampshire judge]]) who would eventually serve as Speaker of the [[Massachusetts House of Representatives]].<ref>Mary Pickering, sister of Timothy, was married to Salem Congregational minister [[Dudley Leavitt (minister)|Dudley Leavitt]], for whom Salem's Leavitt Street is named. A Harvard-educated native of [[Stratham, New Hampshire]], Leavitt died an untimely death in 1762 at age 42. Mary Pickering Leavitt remarried Nathaniel Peaselee Sargeant of [[Haverhill, Massachusetts|Haverhill]], Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Mary Pickering's daughter Elizabeth Pickering Leavitt married Salem merchant William Pickman.[https://books.google.com/books?id=x24MAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22dudley+leavitt%22+salem+death&pg=PA105]</ref>  He attended grammar school in Salem and graduated from [[Harvard College]] in 1763. Salem minister [[William Bentley]] noted on Pickering: "From his youth his townsmen proclaim him assuming, turbulent, & headstrong."<ref>''The Diary of William Bentley, D.D., Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts'', 4 vols. (Gloucester, Mass.: Smith, 1962), 3:352.</ref>

After graduating from Harvard, Pickering returned to Salem where he began working for John Higginson, the town clerk and [[Essex County, Massachusetts|Essex County]] register of deeds.  Pickering was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1768 and, in 1774, he succeeded Higginson as register of deeds.  Soon after, he was elected to represent Salem in the [[Massachusetts General Court]] and served as a justice in the Essex County Court of Common Pleas.  On April 8, 1766, he married Rebecca White of Salem.<ref>Octavius Pickering and Charles W. Upham, ''The Life of Timothy Pickering'', 4 vols. (Boston: Little Brown, 1867–73), 1:7–15, 31.</ref>

In January 1766, Pickering was commissioned a lieutenant in the Essex County militia.  He was promoted to captain three years later.  In 1769, he published his ideas on drilling soldiers in the ''Essex Gazette''.  These were published in 1775 as "An Easy Plan for a Militia."<ref>Pickering and Upham, ''Life of Timothy Pickering'', 1:85.</ref> The manual was used as the Continental Army drill book until replaced by [[Baron von Steuben]]'s Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States<ref name=wills2003>{{cite book |author = Garry Wills |author-link = Garry Wills |year = 2003 |title = Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power |chapter = Before 1800 |chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/negropresidentje00will/page/20 |pages = [https://archive.org/details/negropresidentje00will/page/20 20–21] |publisher = [[Houghton Mifflin Company]] |isbn = 0-618-34398-9 |chapter-url-access = registration }}</ref>