Centennial history of Rush
County, Indiana
Edited by A. L Gary and E. B. Thomas
Rushville, Ind.
In Two Volumes
Illustrated
VOLUME II
1921
HISTORICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
INDIANAPOLIS

EDGAR THOMAS, president of the First National Bank of Milroy, this county, and for years recognized as one of the leading business men of that part of the county, has been a resident of Rush county all his life and has ever had a hearty interest in the develop- ment of the commercial and industrial activities of his home com- munity. He was born on a farm in Anderson township on August 28, 1866, son of William and Ann E. (Wood) Thomas, both of whom also were born in Rush county, members of old families here, and who spent all their lives here, the latter dying in May, 1893, and the former in June, 1899. William Thomas was born on a pioneer farm in Anderson township, the son of Amos Thomas, who had come up into Indiana with his father, a "local" Methodist minister, from Bourbon county, Kentucky, about the year 1821, the year in which Rush county was organized as a separate civic unit among the coun- ties of the Hoosier state, the family settling on a farm of "Congress land'' in Anderson township. On that pioneer farm Amos Thomas grew to manhood and in time established his home in the same neigh- borhood, and in his turn William Thomas also established his home there after his marriage to Ann E. Wood, who was born in Orange township and whose parents also were of pioneer stock. William Thomas remained on the farm until about 1894, when he moved into Milroy, where he spent the remainder of his life, his death occurring, as noted above, in 1899. He and his wife were the parents of four children, those besides the subject of this sketch being Nettie, wife of John H. Parker; Elgie, of Rushville, and Bertha, wife of Morton E. Riehey. Reared on the home farm in Anderson township, Edgar Thomas supplemented the schooling he received in the local school-* by a course in a business college at Danville, this state, and was then engaged, until he was twenty-six years of age, in carrying on the operations of the home farm. On his father's removal to Milroy he accompanied him and was there engaged in the buggy business and later for a couple of years in the general hardware business, after which he resumed farming; that is, overseeing farms in which he was interested, and is still the owner of a fine little farm of forty acres in Anderson township. From the time he was eighteen years of age Mr. Thomas has made a specialty of acting as clerk at local public farm sales and there is probably no one in the county who has thus acted at more sales hereabout than he, this service giving him a wide and popular acquaintance throughout the whole countryside. Mr. Thomas was one of the active spirits in the organization of the First National Bank of Milroy and was elected president of the same upon its organization, a position he still retains, his service in that con- nection having done much in the popularizing of the institution in the early days of its establishment and in the stabilizing of it since. The bank was opened for business on August 30, 1920, and has become recognized as one of the sound financial institutions of the county. In 1900 Mr. Thomas was united in marriage to Zena Miller, daughter of James M. and Melissa Miller, also of this county, and he and his wife have a very pleasant home at Milroy and are ever helpful in promoting the social activities of their home community. Mr. Thomas is a Republican and has ever taken an interested part in local political affairs, but has not been a seeker after office.