Stanley Thomas was the youngest child of James and Mary Thomas. He was born on November 6, 1806 and died on April 11, 1858. His brother-in-law, Cyrus Thompson, wrote a sketch of Stanley’s life as reported in the publication, “Pioneers of Trigg County, Kentucky, as Seen Through the Biographical and Genealogical Articles of Cyrus Thompson in the Kentucky Telephone and the Cadiz Record, 1889-1899” which was edited by Barney Thompson in 1996. Presented below is that sketch:
“In some of my previous communications I made mention of Stanley Thomas, titled Colonel, as having been a merchant in Cadiz in about 1836 and a partner of Maj. Alfred Boyd, and I now propose to speak of him at some length because he became a noted citizen.
Stanley Thomas, after going to Cadiz, first embarked in the goods business with Frasier Y. Lawson, who was a well-known citizen of Cadiz, a rather handsome man of pleasing address, and a tailor by trade. Then with a man by the name of Burkley or Buckland, a northern man who, it was said, did not "tote fair," and lastly with Maj. Alfred Boyd. Neither copartnership lasted over a year or two-- that with Boyd the longest.
After retiring from the mercantile business Mr. Thomas became the acting Sheriff of Trigg, and filled the position for six years under the leasing or farming system; and afterwards for four years by election by the people under the present constitution—being all the while a popular officer. He was for a short time the proprietor of the old Hotel previously owned and kept by my father, and in 1849 was elected to the Kentucky legislature as a Whig, besting Col. Daniel Landes, the nominee of the Democrats in a Democratic county, thereby showing his personal popularity; and here allow me to digress by saying that Col. Thomas and Col. Landes were brothers-in-law, having married sisters, and altho' the contest was heated and the race an exciting one, they were as good friends after the election as before.
Stanley Thomas was a man of generous impulses, social, honorable and liberal. He had a sunny countenance and pleasing manners, and scarcely a man ever lived in Cadiz--so well known, and for so long a time, so prominent before the people in some public capacity--who was so popular. He was very convivial in his nature and disposition, and this characteristic came very near destroying his usefulness.
In the first years of his residence in Cadiz, by association with frolicsome young men and indulgence in the social glass, he acquired a taste and formed a habit that injured him and threatened his destruction, but he had the moral firmness to throttle the "monster," and became an instance and an example of permanent reform. He soon thereafter joined the Baptist Church, and lived thereafter a consistent Christian life.
In 1843, Stanley Thomas married my sister, Sarah Thompson, then the widow of N. W. Rothrock, and they had and reared three children, two sons and one daughter, who, if they have not or shall not honor their parents, certainly have never brought reproach upon them--they were Robert B., Henry C., and Sarah. Robert is a respectable and honorable merchant of Louisville, having been quite successful. Henry came to Texas in the latter years of his boyhood, and in early manhood married and sold goods at Weimar, until his death some years since, having been honored and respected; and Sarah married Thomas Moore, a respectable merchant of Comanche, Texas, a brother of Mollie E. Moore, the gifted Texas poetess. Stanley Thomas died in Cadiz in 1858 in his 50th year, an honored and respected citizen, and was preceded by his wife, who died in 1853, she having been an honored member of the Methodist Church.”
THE LINEAGE:
(Stanley Thomas the seventh child of James and Mary Standley Thomas)
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