Kitts (Getz) is a German name derived from the pet form of Godizo “God.”[1]

John Jacob Kitts (Getz) was born about 1730 in Holland married Nancy (maiden name unknown). By 1770 John Kitts had settled on 150 acres on Reedy Creek in present day Wythe County, Virginia. In about 1779 he left Virginia, crossed the Cumberland Gap, followed the Cumberland River to French Lick, which is now Nashville, Tennessee. There he received preemption rights to 640 acres about one and a half miles north of Nashville on the Cumberland River. In 1802 he died and left a will in Robertson County, Tennessee. His heirs included a wife, a son, two daughters and a grandson. When John went to Tennessee, he took with him one daughter, Mary. His second

daughter, Elizabeth Kitts Blessing, and his son, Peter, remained in Virginia. Elizabeth died in Wythe County in 1825. John's son, Peter Kitts, married Elizabeth Wyrick in 1786. They moved to Grainger County, Tennessee around 1810. Peter left no will. Tradition has it that he died around 1830 and was buried in the Dyer cemetery in Rutledge, Grainger County, Tennessee. Three of Peter's sons, Henry, Jacob and Andrew, returned to Virginia to marry and raise their families.

Peter Kitts married Elizabeth Wyrick on 23 August 1786 in Montgomery County, Virginia. She was the daughter of Johann Nicolaus Wyrick and Anna Barbara Litchmere Peter Kitts served in Hezekiah Harman's District, north of Walker Mountain. In 1797 Wythe County’s Samuel Crockett's District. On 9 May 1797 he was appointed Constable in Leonard Straw’s Company.[2]

Andrew J. Kitts was born about 1795 probably in Wythe County. He married Polly Leedy on 24 May 1825 in Wythe County. She was born about 1810 to John Leedy and Mary Gullian (probably same John Leedy in previously mentioned deeds of Wythe County). Andrew and Polly had thirteen children: Dulaney, Elizabeth, John David, Harvey G,., James W., Telia Ann, David, Jacob Franklin, Virginia Caroline, Jane, Andrew Jackson, M. Nancy and Frances. Telia Ann married Thomas G. Pauley on 30 April 1856 in Wythe; which many of the Little Walkers Creek Pauley’s descended. Virginia Caroline married Charles Russell Burton 15 October 1868 in Bland County.

Jacob Franklin 1^st married Lutheria Bruce on 17 March 1864 in Bland; he married 2^nd  Cynthia Wyrick on 04 April 1869 in Bland and 3^rd Lilly Jane Hamblin on 20 May 1908 in Bland. Cynthia was the daughter of Asa Wyrick and Marinda Bogle. Asa being a descendent of the above named Johann Nicolaus Wyrick.

                                                                 Jacob Kitts

Submitted by Wade Arnold Davis

Jacob served in the Confederate Army; enlisted in the 45th Virginia Infantry, Company F on May 29, 1861 in Wytheville, Wythe County. He transferred to the 24th Infantry Regiment on December 28, 1864.[3]

Jacob applied for a Confederate pension on August 9, 1906 “by reason of old age, being past 67 years of age. He was entitled to $15.00 annually. Most of

the pension application is illegible.[4]