Historical Marker Honoring James Thomas, Jr.
James Thomas, Jr. was one of the seven children of James Thomas and Mary “Mollie” Standley Thomas who make up the core of the Thomas side of the Thomas and Bridges family. James, Jr. was the fourth son of the family and was born on November 3, 1803 in the Cashie River area of Bertie County, North Carolina. He was only three years old when his family left their plantation in North Carolina and traveled about 650 miles to their new home in Christian County (now Trigg), Kentucky.
The traveling family included James, Jr.’s siblings: Cullen, age 15, Temperance, age 13, Perry, age 9, Starkie, age 7, and Mary, age 4. In addition his mother, Mary, was expecting her seventh child, Stanley, who was the only child of James and Mary that was born in Kentucky. The family traveled by oxen-drawn wagons to a location on the Holston River near what is now Kingsport in east Tennessee. The family had a choice at this point to continue to western Kentucky. They could travel by flatboat down the rivers of central Tennessee or continue an overland journey along the trail with the oxen-drawn wagons. It is not known for certain what James chose to do, but it is believed that he most likely chose to continue the journey by flatboat as the rivers were high in the spring time when they were traveling which made travel by flatboat much easier.
The family arrived in July of 1806 and settled on a farm in the Donaldson Creek section of the county. James, Jr. grew up on this family farm and his formal education was obtained by attending the Donaldson School. He also received some tutoring from his older brother, Perry. After he turned 21 years old, he purchased approximately 100 acres of land in the Donaldson Creek valley for $100 on February 24, 1824. His property adjoined that of his brother Perry on the east. This made over two miles of land on both side of the Big Road, the main thoroughfare through the valley, which now belonged to James Thomas, Sr. and his sons.
In 1829, when James, Jr. was 26 years old, he married Martha Ethridge. Martha was born in 1810 and was a native of Davidson County, Tennessee. Her parents were David Tatum Ethridge and Penina Skinner Ethridge.
James, Jr. was a Democrat, a Mason, a planter, a justice of the peace and a deacon in the Donaldson Creek Baptist Church and lived his entire life in the Donaldson Creek valley where he had settled with his family in 1806. Matthew McKinney, who published a newspaper in Cadiz, Kentucky in the 1880’s described James Thomas, Jr. as “…the most rugged in appearance of all the Thomas brothers. He was as stern and immovable as a Federal judge; irrascable but remarkably quiet, but when aroused for a cause, perhaps the most dangerous of them all,…He was more retiring than any other of the brothers and consequently the lesser known. He was a kind neighbor and much beloved by his friends.”
James, Jr. and Martha became the parents of six children, Edwin C. Thomas, born in 1830, Carroll Thomas, born in 1831, James Clark “Muck” Thomas, born in 1835, their only daughter, Amanda Jane Thomas, born in 1838. They had one unnamed child who died in infancy.
James Thomas, Jr. died on February 20, 1864 at the age of 61. He was buried in the Peyton Thomas Cemetery which was located at the intersection of the Old Dover and Donaldson Creek roads. His wife, Martha outlived her husband by 22 years and died on April 6, 1886 when she was 76 years old. She was buried next to her husband in the Peyton Thomas Cemetery.
Tombstone of James, Jr. and Margaret Thomas
LINEAGE: (James Thomas, Jr. was the sixth child of James Thomas and Mary Standley Thomas)
No comments:
Post a Comment