As a boy Peter was bonded out to Captain James Estill, in approximately 1771, and was a part of the broad Scotch-Irish migration along the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap from Virginia into what later became known as Kentucky in the late 18th century.
Most American Indians supported the British, who supplied their native allies with muskets and gunpowder and advised raids against civilian settlements.
Fort Estill, founded near Boonesborough in 1779 and inhabited by James Hestill, Peter Hackett, and others, was attacked by Wyandot Indians in March 1782.
The Indians, aided by the British in Detroit, had raided from Boonesborough past Estill's Station along the Kentucky River.
[2] The boys found them near the mouth of Drowning Creek and Red River early on the morning of March 21.
A family legend states that Lincoln stayed at the Hackett farm during the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, a claim that is unlikely to be far-fetched given their common origins and political leanings.