THOMAS, William - b 1844 - Putnam

WILLIAM THOMAS. William and Margaret Thomas, who came from Kentucky in 1834, settled on land just north of Greencastle and were pioneers of that part of the county. William died in the fall of 1839 and in the following year his widow, with her two sons, George and Lewis, settled in Madison township. She lived with George until her death, in March, 1863, aged sixty-four years. George has been living in Parke county for thirty years, and Lewis, who also removed to Parke county, died there in 1907. There were two other sons, William and Isaac, who both died in Parke county. Joel Thomas, one of the children, was born in Mason county, Kentucky, and was brought to Indiana by his parents in 1834, when fourteen years old. He married Mary, the daughter of Aaron and Martha Stites, of Clinton township. She was born in Ohio, but came to Indiana with her parents when a young girl. Joel, after marriage, rented a farm for a number of years and in 1854 bought one hundred fourteen acres in the wildwood. By hard work he was able to pay for it, though the job of clearing it was a long and difficult one. He built a double log house which at that time was regarded as an unusually fine residence. He spent the rest of his life on this farm, placing eighty acres in cultivation. On November 8, 1884, he was instantly killed by a Big Four engine while walking on the railroad track in company with his brother and others, returning from a ratification at Carbon, being in the sixty-fourth year of his age. His first wife died August 4, 1879, after which he married Elizabeth Hart, a widow who died about four weeks before her husband was killed. His children, still living in 1910, consisted of eight sons and one daughter, as follows : William, of this review ; Hiram, of Clinton township ; John, of Madison township ; James, of Parke county Joel, of Washington township; Aaron, of Madison township; Levi, of Vigo county; Isaac Marion, a resident of the state of Washington; Fanny, wife- of Frank Burcham, of Hickman, Nebraska. William Thomas, eldest of the family, was born in Putnam county, Indiana, June 17, 1844. He remained at home until over eighteen years old, when he decided to face the world on his own account. Buying four horses, he was engaged for four years in hauling saw-logs to mill and threshing during the other seasons of the year. In about four years he had secured eighty acres of land, which he later sold at an advance and continued to trade about until 1873, when he got possession of his present farm. It was the homestead of Joseph Priest, eight miles west of Greencastle. It was an improved place and Mr. Thomas paid four thousand two hundred and fifty dollars for the one hundred twenty acres. He has since added until his holdings in the home farm amount to two hundred twenty acres. He also owns one hundred acres in Parke county and his land is largely devoted to raising and feeding hogs and cattle. He still continues also to operate his threshing outfit. He has been with the machine every season since he was eleven years old, making fifty-four consecutive threshing seasons. Of late years he has added clover hullers, corn huskers and other modern improvements. Mr. Thomas is well known as a thresher over a wide scope of territory. In 1899 he won a handsome medal as a prize offered by the Milwaukee Thresherinan to the thresherman who had been in the service longest in the United States. For twenty-eight seasons he threshed for any one of a set of customers from Raccoon creek, also for a period of twenty-six years for a bunch of men in Clay county. He has used more machines than any thresherman in the United States, being now on his twelfth machine. The first machine he was with was a "groundhog," fourhorse-power chaff-piler. He was among the first to use steam power. Mr. Thomas served seven years as township trustee, though he did not care for or seek office. On January I, 1863, Mr. Thomas married Elizabeth, daughter of George and Eliza (Gregg) Ewing, of Madison township. They came from Fleming county, Kentucky, and settled in Montgomery county, Indiana, where Mrs. Thomas was born October 5, 1842. Her parents brought her to Putnam county when she was five years old and settled in Madison township when she was eleven years old. Her father died at the age of forty- two. Her mother was left with five children, the eldest of whom, Elizabeth, was only thirteen years old. The widow kept the family together until her marriage with Isaac Thomas, a brother of Joel. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas have had a large family, whose names are as follows : Henry, a traveling salesman, resident of Indianapolis ; Oscar, superintendent of the Putnam county schools; J. Elmer, an attorney at Lawton, Oklahoma; Charles B., undertaker at Rosedale, Parke county, Indiana; Fred, a buggy dealer, of Greencastle; Cleveland, a teacher in Putnam county; all but Henry and Charles have been school teachers; Dora, widow of Charles Reeves, living at home, is a trained nurse. Three of the daughters reached maturity. Eliza married Charles J. Priest and died at the age of eighteen years; Leona, a teacher, married Edward Wiley and died at twenty-three years of age; Bertha, a teacher, died at the age of twenty-three. – thanks to Indiana State Digital books