Many thanks to Kate
Thomas Hancock for contributing her THOMAS Family History, written
in1948, by her
Great Aunt Sarah, which traces the family
migration from Wales to Remsen, arriving there in 1838, where they remained
untill 1844, when they again embarked on another journey to Wisconsin.
Kate tells me that part of the original property
that her ancestors bought, when the family
moved to Wisconsin, is still owned by the family.
Chapter I: Wales, Great Britain 1808 - 1838
Owen
J. Thomas spent most of his life as a farmer on Section 23, Delafield
Township, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, on the north side of the Highway
30, a half mile west of Zion Church.
His
ancestors lived in Anglesea, North Wales. His paternal grandfather
was John Thomas Davies, a woolen weaver and tailor in the city of Caernaervon
on the Menia Straits. Of Davies' life, little is known to his descendants
of today, since both he and his wife died young. Of their five children,
the two older daughters married in the late 1820's and migrated with their
husbands to the gold fields of Australia, where, probably, some of their
descendants are living today.
The
third child of this Davies family, also named John, born in 1808, became
the father of Owen J. Thomas of this writing. A younger brother,
Richard E., and a younger sister, Margaret, completed the family.
Of the latter two, a small photograph remains in the family of Owen;
it shows the young brother and his sister, about the ages of twenty and
seventeen, standing in the photographer's shop in Thomas Street, Caernaervon,
just as they might have appeared at home a day or two before Richard sailed
away for America.
A knee
injury in childhood left the young John lame for life. He helped
in his father's shop and learned the woolen weaving and tailoring trades.
In dull seasons, John also worked for a nearby doctor; driving, caring
for the horse and helping with bone setting and bandaging. It is
not known just when the young man changed his name from John Davies to
John D. Thomas. On account of the large number of persons by the
same name among the Welsh people, a son would sometimes take his father's
middle name to be his own last name. Some of his descendants have
suggested that the family name was changed by these children just after
their father's death. There is no proof.
In 1828,
John D. Thomas, aged twenty, married Harriet Jones, aged sixteen, of Bryngollen,
Anglesea. Her father was a seaman of that place. His son Henry
and younger Harriet were the children of their father's first wife.
He had remarried. Since infancy, Harriet had lived with her mother's
two maiden sisters, Anne and Margaret Jones, small farmers and village
store keepers in comfortable circumstances at Bryngollen or Llanerchymedd.
Shortly before Harriet's marriage, both her father and her brother were
lost at sea.
The
newly married couple lived in Caernaervon in John's home with his younger
brother and his sister, and they continued their father's shop. Here
three children were born: Margaret, in 1832; John, 1833;
and David, 1834. Then the family moved to a farm known as "Ty Mawr"
(Large House) near the home of Harriet's aunts. It was at the latter
place, Bryngollen, Anglesea, that Owen, the fourth child, was born on July
22, 1837.
In 1894, Owen permitted the following
brief facts of his origin to be published:
"Owen J. Thomas, as enterprising and
representative
citizen of Section 23, Delafield, is
a native of Angleseashire,
Wales, son of John and Harriet Jones
Thomas, the former a
native of Caernaervon, and the latter of
Anglesea."
Of the success
or failure of John and Harriet Thomas as farmers at "Ty Mawr", no information
has come down to their descendants. It is a matter of record, however,
that in August 1838, they embarked on a sailing vessel from Liverpool for
America. Their party included eight persons: four adults, namely
John and Harriet and the latter's aunts, Ann and Margaret Jones; four children:
Margaret, six; John, five; David, four; and Owen, one year of age.
The voyage consumed ten weeks.
Chapter II: New York State, 1838 - 1844
At last the Thomas' landed in New York Harbor. They sailed up the quiet waters of the Hudson River to Albany, and thence by Erie Canal to Utica, New York. Here the family was very happy meeting former friends from Wales who had migrated earlier, and becoming acquainted with new friends, some of whom they were to enjoy the rest of their lives. The Welsh settlement was large, including the Utica, Rome, and Remsen areas. The parents became members of the newly-founded Pen-y-Cerau Church of Remsen, one of the first Calvinistic Methodist Churches in America. In the Sunday School and in the Remsen public school, the older children were learning the English language, retaining their Welsh at home. Late in his life, Owen Thomas related to his children some of the happy times of his New York boyhood:
Around Remsen were then groves of maple trees, called
"Sugar Bushes", by the Yankees. One adventurous pleasure of the
mall boys was to spend the whole night out in these maple woods
with their elders at the sugar camp tending the fires beneath the huge
kettles of boiling maple sap and watching the sparks fly up into the
dark sky. At "sugaring off" the boys would crowd around the pouring
kettle to fill their pockets with the sugar chips as the spilled syrup
hardened on the frozen ground. Another exciting enjoyment for older
boys was helping to strip bark for the tannery trade from the oak trees.
The trees had been girdled some time before at the bottom. Seizing a
piece of bark, loosened at the girdle, the boy would lift the bark at the
same time that he pulled and ran away from it, until it broke off high up
and fell, without breaking, to the ground, and without striking the boy.
The
greatest fun of all for Owen came in the very severe winters when deep
snow covered roads, fences, and shrubs; then would follow sub-zero cold
until the snow was frozen so hard that horse-drawn loads of logs and grain
could pass easily anywhere over it. The small boys, especially, enjoyed
these days. They would dig tunnels under the snow from the house
to the barn or to the street; through these hollow winding openings, dimly
lighted, the daring young adventurers would run and collide with one another
with shouts and echoing laughter.
According
to his son Owen, John D. Thomas, soon after his arrival "purchased a farm
of about one hundred acres under a fair state of cultivation" . He
also applied for citizenship papers at Utica, the county-seat. New
York settlers from Wales had expected to grow rich from raising wheat.
John D. Thomas soon discovered, as earlier neighbors already knew, that
the Rome-Utica-Remsen soil was too rough and gravelly for more than a few
crops of wheat: hopes of immense crops would never reach fulfillment.
The wood crop-both bark and timber-was then too plentiful to bring good
prices; the outlook was not encouraging.
A matter of
more immediate concern to John D. Thomas was the impaired health of his
young wife. She suffered from severe asthma, the causes of which,
local doctors declared, were the lack of sunshine and the dampness arising
from the heavy tree growths in the locality. They advised a change
of climate without delay.
At first, the thought of leaving their
New York home after six happy years in pleasant association at church and
school for themselves and their children was almost more than John and
Harriet could bear. Two small daughters-Jane in 1839 and Catherine
in 1842, had been born on the Remsen farm; Aunt Ann Jones had died and
lay in the Albany cemetery.
However, some
of the Thomas' neighbors, after a few wheat failures, had already gone
to the wheat lands of the Middle West. Their letters reported splendid
crops of wheat and a fine market at Milwaukee. The nearby Erie Canal
offered a prospect of cheap and quick passage through the Great Lakes.
John and Harriet decided to go to Wisconsin Territory.
The
final hours of their departure were described by their son Owen, years
later, as follows:
Aunt Margaret and Owen, and seven, had been assigned to
remain behind the others to close the house. As soon as the pair,
loaded with bundles, reached the road, a freighter came by. Stopping,
he offered them a ride. The boy immediately tossed up his bundles
and was climbing into the wagon. His aunt severely called him back.
But the boy showed his true pioneer spirit for not losing the main
chance. Standing on the hub of the wagon wheel, he argued with his
aunt in Welsh and explained to the freighter in English until the lady
was convinced that it was safe to ride the eight-mile trip with a stranger.
When they reached the canal at Rome, another difficulty arose:
they could not find their family; so great was the crowding of livestock,
household goods, and families of new settlers coming and of others
leaving. After dodging and darting about, the two were finally united
with the rest. The Thomas party consisted of three adults, seven children,
ranging from two to fourteen years of age, household goods, food
supplies for the trip, and two animals: a young Morgan mare and her
young colt.
Of the voyage on the Erie Canal, no account has come down to the present.
It may have been slow and uneventful, similar to canal travel described
by Walter Edmunds in Erie Water and Mostly Canallers.
At Buffalo,
the travellers were met by Mrs. Thomas' cousin, Captain William Brown,
also formerly of Bryngollen, Wales. He had preceded them to America
in 1836 and settled in the Welsh Colony at Racine, Wisconsin Territory.
A seaman by calling, he had risen to
the captaincy of a sailing freighter on the Great Lakes. It was he
who brought the Thomas' from Buffalo to the West. The older children
were never to forget the four weeks on the lakes. The boat was crowded
with passengers, their goods, and a large cargo--mostly dried salt fish.
At first, the mixture of bad odors almost nauseated the children to starvation.
Soon measles broke out--fortunately a mild form from which there were no
deaths. The coastwise stops to load and unload passengers and goods,
and the lack of room on board severely tried their patience. More
fortunate than some, the Thomas children had one near-relief: their
daily goings below with their father to care for the horses. They
would wash, brush, and curry every inch of their beloved mare Fly, and
her frisky little Fanny, gentle and intelligent animals, themselves also
suffering from the confinement of the ship.
Chapter III: Wisconsin Territory, 1844 - 1848
It was a misty October morning in 1844 when the John D. Thomas family disembarked
in the Milwaukee River. Some of their descendants have regretted
that they were not able to point out the exact spot where the landing was
made. Mr. John Evans, a former friend of New York, was waiting to
welcome them to his home where they were to be guests until John Thomas
could notify his brother Richard of Genesee, Waukesha County of their arrival.
Brother Richard had come to the territory
in 1842; a year later, he had married Miss Winifred Morgan, who had come
to the Welsh Settlement in Waukesha County in 1843 in the "King" Jones
party. This young couple was now living in their new log house on
their farm near the present village of Wales, adjoining Salem Cemetery,
originally a part of their farm, near the present Chicago and Northwestern
Railway overhead bridge on Highway 18.
After
a few days of rest and pleasant entertainment at the Evans' home in Milwaukee,
the John D. Thomas family was carried by his brother Richard, in his lumber
wagon to his home. With a hearty welcome, the new log house somewhere
found room for the ten new relatives and their goods, and the barn made
shelter for the mare and colt.
Some
of the John D. Thomas' descendants have maintained that the change in the
family surname from Davies to Thomas had not been made by John, but by
the younger Richard on his arrival in America and that John merely adopted
the new surname of his brother. The facts of the matter can not be
established.
It was now
October, and John Thomas lost no time in looking about to buy a farm for
a permanent home before winter should set in. Fortunately the weather
had been mild and pleasant. He sought out a former New York acquaintance,
Mr. David W. Roberts who had come to Waukesha County earlier in the
same year, 1844.
He had
been well known in New York circles as a well educated, honorable man of
shrewd judgment. He had just become the owner of three quarter sections
of the former "Milwaukee-Watertown Canal land" in Section 27 of the
town of Delafield, one section including shore frontage on the southwest
end of Snail Lake, the whole plat today being intersected by Highway 30
and County Trunk EE. In the open places of the south east part of
this land, a squatter of a large nursery project, and later abandoned the
work.
Northeast
of this Roberts' property, including the frontage of Snail Lake along to
the east, were about ninety acres of land adjoining the Roberts' farm,
also a part of the nursery development recently abandoned, showing young
fruit trees in flourishing condition, and a substantial log house of the
prospector, near a spring of good water. The advantage of good neighbors
and the improved condition of this land prompted John D. Thomas to buy
it at once. Two months after their arrival in Wisconsin, the Thomas'
were settled in their home at Snail Lake.
The record of this purchase states that "on February 24, 1845,
John Thomas applied for a patent to buy from the United States gov-
ernment in the North West corner of Section 23, Township 7, Range
18, in the Territory of Wisconsin"
"On August 1, 1847, the patent sale was granted to John D.
Thomas to the N. W. Quarter of Section 23, Township 7, North of
Range 18 East, containing 151+60/100 acres."
"It appears that full payment has been made by John Thomas
of Milwaukee County in said Territory".
Owen J.
Thomas said that his father John D. Thomas, received his final naturalization
papers in Wisconsin, applied for at Utica, New York. Recent inquiries
at the Office of the Circuit Court Clerk in both Waukesha and Milwaukee
Counties have failed to produce any record of John D. Thomas' naturalization.
Waukesha County had not been separated from Milwaukee County until 1848.
However, Mr. Samuel Connell, present (1947) clerk of the Waukesha County
Circuit Court, states that territorial records were often not kept by the
court; instead, the papers were handed to their owners for safe keeping;
that cases still occur in which the descendants of an early citizen bring
proof of his naturalization by his well-kept papers. Many settlers
preferred to keep all their legal papers in their homes. John D.
Thomas; citizenship papers may have been lost.
The
deed, however, is still in the possession of one of John D. Thomas' grandsons,
Mr. Edward Francis Thomas of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. It is said to
be recorded to John and Harriet Thomas, original owners of a grant of land,
and to bear the facsimile of the signature of President James K. Polk.
Owen Thomas told his children of the first Sunday in the new home at Snail Lake:
"Father and we children were standing in the front door or the
log house looking south east over the tree-covered acres. We noticed
that there was one tree much taller and larger around than all the rest.
'Let's go to look at it,' said Father. We walked through the trees until
we came to the large burr oak , very high at the center and very evenly
wide all around, in perfect condition."
As
Owen continued to look out across the corn field at this tree, seventy
years later, he said, "It looks no larger to me now than it did then to
Father and us children."
The Snail
Lake home was far from the dreary, lonely habitation which some of the
earlier Welsh settlers foretold it would be: too far from the Welsh
Churches and Welsh neighbors: no frontage on the public road, the
farm lying behind another eighty acres next to the public road; and worst
of all the lake - dangerous and deep!
To the
new owners, however, when spring came many attractions and advantages were
revealed. The house stood on the south side of a gentle slope of
land, high enough so that by standing outside of the door, one could overlook
the entire farm. Near at hand, all about the house stood blossoming
cherry, plum, apple, and pear trees, half as tall as the house itself;
facing about to the north, one could not fail to be fascinated by the changing
beauty of color and light on Snail Lake below. As for neighbors,
John and Harriet would often exclaim, "Where could we find better neighbors
than the David W. Roberts and the Audleys?"
Finally, the
lake and its dampness proved no menace at all. Harriet's health was
soon greatly improved so that here for many years she was entirely free
from the dreaded asthma.
The
objective of every settler was to pay for his land as soon as possible.
For the few years following, the Thomas family faced hard labor cutting
down trees, pulling up stumps and rocks deeply imbedded in the ground,
and planting and harvesting crops almost entirely by hand, interrupted
by fence building to enclose crops and livestock. Even women and
children worked in the fields at harvest.
Marketing
over rough roads to Milwaukee, twenty-four miles away, was equally difficult.
Nevertheless, after the second year, the Thomas family marketed loads of
wheat, barley, butter, wool, and hogs; their farming succeeded well.
On these trips
to Milwaukee, the father usually would take along one of his sons to mind
the horses, help with the load, and with the accounts; often it was Owen,
the smallest of the three boys and the least valuable for the farm work.
The lad soon gained a familiarity with the English language and with the
markets and streets of the city--advantage which the older sons sometimes
complained they were missing.
Encouraged
by this early success, John D. Thomas decided to buy more land. He
drove his team to Neenah, Wisconsin, and started to buy a quarter section
of the heavily wooded land a few miles from that city. Later, after
longer experience in the difficulties of land clearing, he abandoned the
Neenah land.
Chapter IV: The New Land, 1848 - 1854
In 1848,
Wisconsin Territory was admitted into the Union. Crowds of new settlers
poured into secure homes in the new land. The Welsh settlement of
Waukesha County received many new members, most of them relatives of the
established families. Into the Thomas family came their youngest
sister Margaret from Caernaervon, North Wales. For a short time,
she lived in her brother Richard's home until she took a position as seamstress
in the home of Mr. William A. Barstow of Waukesha. During the short
period in 1854 when he was Governor Barstow, Margaret lived with the family
in the Governor's Mansion at Madison. Later she was married to a
Mr. Williams, a retired lake captain living on his farm near Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Here a son Hugh was born to Caption and Mrs. Williams.
A newcomer
into the John D. Thomas family was Mr. Owen from Wales, but recently from
Ohio. He was a shoe maker by trade, and cobbler, much in demand among
settlers. In a short time he married Mrs. Thomas' aunt, Miss Margaret
Jones, and built a log house on the Thomas farm, but after a few years,
he moved his family to Minnesota.
In spite of hard farm labor, life among
the Welsh settlers was generally enjoyable. Most of them were not
you of middle age, in good health and ambitious. Financially, most
of them had brought little to their new homes, but they were prospering
from the abundant crops of grain. Families, generally, were large;
everyone helped, even the children.
Neighbors joined together into work "bees", thus promoting enthusiasm and
encouragement as well as social life. Church activity was directed
mainly to the building of places of worship and the religious teaching
in the Sunday Schools of Jerusalem and Tabernacle, the former Calvinistic
Methodist, and the latter Congregationalist. Frequent church meetings
singing conventions, Bible Society gatherings, and church oyster suppers
attracted families even from afar.
Unfortunately,
educational opportunities were not so ample. the Brandy Brook log
school, on the site of the present building on Highway 18, offered the
only education in the settlement. During the winter of 1851, Owen
Thomas, aged thirteen, was send to live at his Uncle Richard's home within
two miles of this school. He attended daily for eleven weeks--his
entire school education. His study was principally arithmetic and
geography, reinforced at evenings by reading from the school books of New
York State brought West by his family.
Brandy Brook School was a typical early
country school overcrowded in Winter by pupils of many ages and grades
of learning. Fortunately, Owen's teacher was a well educated honest,
able young man, a lawyer of Waukesha, Mr. Thomas Spence. His educational
theory was a sound one--to teach the pupil to learn to teach himself and
to retain the habit for the rest of his life. All his life, Owen
never ceased to praise the character of Mr. Spence and the education at
Brandy Brook.
To John
and Harriet Thomas at Snail Lake, five children were born: Harriet,
1846; Elizabeth, ?; Richard, 1849; Thomas, 1851; and Robert, 1853.
Elizabeth died in infancy and was buried in the Tabernacle Cemetery.
A few months later, when her parents attempted to move her remains to the
family plot in the New Salem Cemetery, to their great sorrow, they were
not able to identify her grave.
A recently copied record of the Tabernacle
Cemetery contains the following entry of graves unmarked:
"Elizabeth, inf. dau. of John D. and Harriet (Jones) Thomas,The first marriage in the John D. and Harriet Thomas family occurred in 1852. Margaret, oldest child, was married to Aaron W. Gilbert, son of a well known magistrate and hotel owner of Pewaukee Village. The couple took a farm on the present Highway 18, until Aaron, who had not been reared as a farmer, went to work on the new Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway, placing his wife temporarily in her father's home. Here a daughter, Frances Gertrude Gilbert, was born in 1852.
Snail Lake, d. about 1848 (thought to be first burial)"
Chapter V: The New Land *Continued*, 1854 - 1862
In spite of much sympathetic, kindly, advice, Mrs. Harriet Thomas, forty-two
years old, decided to continue with the Snail Lake farm. The oldest
son, John, had quit farming and started a blacksmith shop on the new Grade
Road. David, the second son, had for some time been clerking i a
Milwaukee clothing store. Kind friends and relatives advised these
older young men of the duty of giving up their chosen callings, at least
temporarily, to help their mother on the farm. But their mother would
not hear of there sacrifices. She declared that she and the younger
children could carry on alone. Owen was now seventeen
and had been with his father more than the older ones. She would
continue with Owen and the three little sisters, and three little brothers.
Farm help was cheap and plentiful; young men with packs on their backs
came often along the roads asking for work on the farms, especially in
the harvest seasons.
So "Mrs.
Thomas, Snail Lake," as she was now called, and the children kept on pulling
stumps with oxen, planting more grain, raising more stock, and hauling
more loads to Milwaukee over the new Grade Road now, which was later to
become part of highway 30. Busy children they were; even little Robert
- nine years old, used to help with the Milwaukee load. Two teams,
an old one ahead, would be hitched to start the load on its trip.
As soon as they reached the top of the hill at Bowers' corner, the wagon
would stop to unhitch the old team, which little Robert would drive back
home, while Owen and the young team, now adjusted to its load, would continue
to Milwaukee. The money to finish paying for the new land was coming
in fast!
The
farm prospered so well that Mrs. Thomas even thought of buying more land.
Owen had for some time expressed a wish that they might someday own the
property just south of their farm, and extending along the Grade Road,
some two hundred and thirty acres in all. Mrs. Louisa Delafield of
Milwaukee was the owner and known to be in financial difficulties, at that
time, due to the recent death of her husband. Mrs. Thomas spoke no
English; Mrs. Delafield know no Welsh, but Owen persuaded his mother to
allow him and his sister Jane to call upon Mrs. Delafield at her home to
ask her to sell the land to his mother. At first the owner refused
to sell; but she had no money to pay taxes. Finally, she and Owen
agreed to a plan: he bought the land for his mother, on condition
that when Mrs. Delafield had the money, she was to buy it back again.
She often afterward spoke of buying, but she never had the money.
Mrs. Thomas paid in cash $2,300.00 for the land. It is recorded in
the Waukesha County Register of Deeds:
"On January 12, 1867, for $2,300.00 paid in hand, Mrs. LouisaYears later, Thomas J. Thomas laughingly related his memory of the transaction. When his Uncle Richard and his Aunt Winifred Thomas at Salem heard that their widow sister-in-law was buying land, they immediately came to try to dissuade her from such folly.
Delafield sold to Mrs. Harriet Thomas two hundred and thirty acres of
land as follows:The West half of the Southeast Quarter of Section 23;
also the Southwest Quarter of Section 23, Township 7,
North of Range 18, East
On December 12, 1860, for the sum of $500.00 in hand,Together, Mrs. Thomas and her son Owen were now the owners of more than half a section of land, a larger tract than the belongings of most of their neighbors. Its value, too, was increasing through their diligent careful farm methods. It was not their good fortune to be situated on the fine new stretch of road recently completed by the State from Milwaukee to Madison, call the "Grade Road" a great improvement over the old "Territory Road" which had gone farther south along the ridge known as "Bunker Hill".
Edmund B. and Elijah C. Kellogg sold to Owen J. Thomas, Lot 2,
Section 23, Township 7, North of Range 18 East, fifty-four and 70/100
acres of land.
Chapter VI: New Homes for New Families, 1862 - 1880
None
of Mrs. Thomas' sons served in the Civil War. The three youngest;
Richard, Thomas, and Robert were only twelve, ten, and eight years of age.
Owen's name was called in the first draft. Because his mother was
a widow, he was excused on furnishing a substitute and paying seven hundred
dollars. Later, he was again called, and again excused because
he had just been elected treasurer of the town of Delafield.
In 1862,
great grief again overtook the Thomas family: they mourned the death
of the third daughter of the family, Catherine, aged twenty. She
passed away in Chicago, where she had been employed and had lived in the
home of her sister Mrs. Gilbert. She was laid to rest near her father
in Salem Cemetery. Fifty years later, an elderly man, Own and Catherine's
cousin, Mr. Hugh Williams of Oshkosh, on a visit to Owen's grown children,
recalled the passing of Catherine, "She was a fine girl, and beautiful!
beautiful! the beauty of the family!"
The
decades of 1860 and 1870 were the years when Mrs. Harriet Thomas was to
see her children leaving her home to found homes and families of their
own. the Gilberts lived a few years in Chicago. Aaron, however,
never liked the large city. Moving his family to Waukegan, Illinois,
he engaged in the dray business. But his old longing for "railroading"
again overcame him. He moved again to Milwaukee to work for
the Milwaukee Road in the land office department.
Margaret, his wife, regretted leaving
Chicago, because she had earned considerable money by piece work in her
home on men's quilted satin vests; she was an expert needle woman, trained
by her tailoring father to help him on her brother's clothes. There
was none of this vest work in Milwaukee; accordingly, she bought with her
money, a large men's boarding house on the present site of the Milwaukee
Railroad freight offices. Here again she was successful in her business;
in a few years the railroad bought her boarding house site.
Margaret
then bought a large house on Greenbush Street, now South Fifth; she bought
other houses to rent them, and she, Mrs. Gilbert, was the first woman member
of the Milwaukee Real Estate Organization.
In the
same year that Margaret found her permanent home, 1862, David, Mrs. Thomas'
second son, left the LaCrosse Lumber Company where he had worked, to homestead
a claim of one hundred and sixty acres in Blue Earth County, Minnesota,
in the Welsh settlement of Cambria, then called "Butternut Valley".
The
former inhabitants of this land, a Sioux Indian tribe, were hostile to
the newcomers; fires had been set, persons had been killed from ambush,
and others had been wounded and left to die. In the spring of 1862,
settlers prepared for defense.
"Twenty-two Welshmen of Cambria (then called ButternutOne day as David Thomas was ploughing near his log house, one of the Guards dashed by shouting the alarm, "Indians! Indians!" Unhitching his team, David hurried to his house to warn his sister Margaret and her small daughter Fanny, who were visiting him, to run for life to the creek and hide in the willows until Guards would come for them. Hitching his team to his wagon, David galloped to the Big Barn. Here a dreadful scene presented itself: families were being brought in, some wounded and left half dead by the savages, others bringing in food and clothing for a siege. After a night in the willows, Margaret and her child were found by Guards and brought in. But the Indians gradually increased in number until the Regulars were called from Fort Snelling.
Valley) enlisted as a militia company for thirty days and built a fort
two or three rods west of David E. Bowen's barn (which barn was then
in existence and known as the "Big Barn") in the center of Section 28
of Cambria. The state furnished the company arms, ammunition and
rations, and they rendered service in protecting the frontier, caring for
the stock left at the deserted homes, and cutting hay for the winter."
"On September 23, 1862, Colonel Sibley with 1500 men metOn the official list of the officers and privates of the Butternut Valley Guards, stands today the name Private Davd Thomas. (He is the only member of his generation of his family whose name has appeared on the pages of history.)
Little Crow with 800 braves at Wood Lake, three miles east of the
Ford of Yellow Medicine. The Indians fled, leaving thirty of their
dead on the field, the whites lost only four killed. The battle proved
quite decisive and made Sibley a Brigadier General.
Soon after the encounter, about 2,000 Sioux Indians surrendered--
the rest fled to Dakota and kept up a predatory war for three years. In all,
about 1,000 whites perished in the massacre."
Chapter VII: New Homes For New Families *Continued*, 1862 - 1880
The Civil War
era was a time of high prices to farmers; grain was needed at any cost
for infantry and cavalry, to carry on the war. Money became so plentiful
that farms were paid for and the owners were planning new buildings; building
became the major community interest, with the result that most of the buildings
were very similar in style. New England architecture, familiar to
many Welsh settlers in their earlier years in New York State, prevailed:
long two storied wooden barns upon a ten or twelve foot basement;
frame clapboarded houses, two stories in the main part, a story and half
wing at the side, a lean-to kitchen at the rear. Barns were generally
left unpainted, but houses were painted white, some few with green shutters.
Examples of these Civil War homes are still standing in the Turville and
George Williams' homes on Highway 18.
In front of
the house was a formal lawn with cedars, lombardy poplars, lilacs, a drooping
mulberry, and a mountain ash tree, planted at proper intervals, - and the
site enclosed by a white picket fence. Mrs. Thomas' new buildings
were of the prevailing architecture.
Fortunately
the interest in building did not neglect churches and schools. The
new District No. 2 Grade School opened in its new stone building on the
present Highway 30; and in 1868 Zion Church was built near the school;
both Mrs. Thomas and daughter Harriet were charter members of this church
which had been organized in Snail Lake. Both school and church were
built of stone from a nearby quarry. Fifty odd years later,
when a national convention of American architects met in Milwaukee, a trip
by bus was planned for the members, to inspect the fine stone masonry on
Zion Church and School, the work of a local Scottish farmer, Mr. Kerr,
and his boy of Hartland.
Meanwhile
Mrs. Thomas was busily planning for the future of the younger children--especially
the three boys. They attended the new Grade School, and were free
to choose their own careers. In 1867, they attended Carroll College
Academy at Waukesha. According to pioneer custom, only one son would
remain at home to become the owner, generally the youngest son. Owen
was the oldest son at home. He had already bought the Kellogg land
along the lake and adjacent to his mother's acres. But he found his
land too small for large crops. Often he expressed a wish to leave
home for a larger piece of land, but his mother had prevailed upon him
to stay with her until the little brothers were older.
Accordingly, on December 10, 1862,
Mrs. Harriet Thomas sold to her son Owen J. Thomas "in consideration of
the sum of five hundred dollars, to her paid in hand."
All those parts of East half of the South West Quarter, and of the WestOwen was now the owner of one hundred and forty-seven acres, adjoining his mother's home. His purchase was partly covered with oak woods. With the help of his brothers, he had soon enclosed his land with rail fences, and had built a barn and a small frame house near the Grade Road. He also remained at home and carried on for his mother. She decided to send the little brothers to school as far as they were willing to attend. After a term at Carroll Academy, Waukesha, they were to be able to choose their own careers. Richard and Robert soon decided definitely they were not to be farmers, but business men. Thomas attended a business school in Milwaukee, but he soon decided to become a farmer. Robert took a position in a grocery at Racine. Richard remained at Carroll. Now Owen asked his mother to decide whether Thomas or he was to remain at Snail Lake. She chose Thomas, as she said, because he was the younger.
half of the South East Quarter of Section Number twenty three in
Township Number seven, North of Range Number eighteen East in
the County of Waukesha in the State of Wisconsin, situate lying and
being north of the center of the Road running East and West across
the South half of said Section twenty-three and leading from the village
of Waukesha, to the village of Delafield and containing about ninety
acres of land by the sum more or less.
Chapter VIII: New Homes For New Families *Continued*, 1868 - 1871
Following
the example of the three oldest children of his family, Owen Thomas was
now to leave Snail Lake to seek his fortune in the great world. In
1868, he decided to try a business career; he hired Mr. Edward Martin to
operate his farm adjoining Snail Lake.
Owen
then entered into a partnership at Portage, Wisconsin, in a grocery store
of a boyhood friend, Mr. James Rice, of Waukesha County. Owen's brother
Richard accompanied him to Portage to attend high school.
The
Rice and Thomas grocery occupied a wooden building on the east side of
DeWitt Street, between East Cook Street and the Canal. Owen, on his
arrival, introduced an improvement in the business--free delivery.
This innovation popularized the store among the housewives. He also
was able to attract business from farmers by shipping to Milwaukee and
selling for them their dressed hogs, poultry, and butter in carload lots
for higher prices than farmers could get from Portage grocers, when
they would buy at all. The Rice and Thomas, Grocers, certainly prospered.
Besides, the social life was very pleasant at Portage. Mr. and Mrs.
Rice and the Thomas brothers were Presbyterians and were well received
by the best Portage families.
But
before long, the two young former farmers had discovered separately that
never liked the messy housekeeping details nor the long close hours indoors
of the grocery man. Also, Owen felt restricted by the business ways
of the small town, accustomed as he had been to larger methods in Milwaukee.
By the end of the second year, he was walking the streets late at night
wishing he had never come to Portage.
On his latest
return from his annual helping with the Snail Lake harvest, to his great
surprise, Owen found that Mr. Rice had sold the grocery, and left for a
farm in Nebraska. The new owner, Mr. Benjamin Williams of Lime Springs,
Iowa had not known that Mr. Rice was not the only owner, as had been represented.
Finally, Owen and Mr. Williams made a friendly settlement in which the
latter deeded his Iowa farm to Owen in order to retain his newly-bought
grocery business.
Chapter IX: New Home For New Families * Continued*, 1871 - 1873
The grocery
venture ended, Owen bought a fine team of Norman horses from Mr. Stephen
Hext on the old Territory Road near Waukesha for a top price of $400.00.
He then drove a wagon load of oats and seed winter wheat a distance of
about one hundred and fifty miles from Snail Lake to Lime Springs, Iowa.
Here he found farmers hurriedly breaking the ground with ox teams and horses
for fall planting of winter wheat.
On the
first visit to the former Williams farm, the new owner saw at once that
it was a bargain. Most of the acres were prairie, with a wooded ravine
at the east end, through which flowed a large clear creek of spring water.
At the top of the ravine among the trees was the new log house; nearby
was the large shed-barn for the stock. In the near distance were
buildings of neighbor homes.
The
new settler immediately sought the home of a relative of his mother, a
Mrs. William Hughes, half sister of Mrs. Thomas, Snail Lake, near Harmony,
Minnesota. The Hughes couple with their two young sons, John and
Owen, had come from North Wales in the sixties to homestead a farm in southeastern
Minnesota, near the Iowa boundary. They welcomed their relative,
and helped him to settle on his new farm.
The
old zest for farm labor possessed Owen again. He bought oxen to join
his neighbors in preparing the prairie soil as soon as possible, so that
the winter wheat plants should be well started before snowfall. The
planting season finished, Owen made secure his house and farm buildings,
drove his teams and cow to the care of the Hughes family, and returned
to Portage, Wisconsin for New Year's.
It was
in Portage that Owen had met his future wife. Once he laughingly
told his grown children that the first time he saw their mother she was
splitting kindling wood very early one morning in his back yard adjacent
to that of his store. She was an English-born girl, Elizabeth Arthur,
sister of Miss Sarah Arthur with whom she lived in the latter's millinery
store building on East Cook Street, a few doors from DeWitt Street.
Owen and Elizabeth were married on February 2, 1871, by the Reverend Ritchie
of the Presbyterian Church of Portage. Following a brief visit at
Snail Lake and Milwaukee, Mrs. and Mrs. Owen J. Thomas were at home on
their Lime Springs, Iowa farm.
The log house,
newly furnished for the new family, was cozy and warm. From its window
Elizabeth saw for the first time the prairie: miles of level land
glistening white in the bright sunshine, broken only by smoke from the
few neighboring chimneys. She had expected to be lonely; she was
mistaken. Nearly every afternoon she would hurry to the door to welcome
stranger neighbors, who stopped to call on their way to town, etc.
They were very friendly young people, in bright scarfs and shawls, with
jingling sleigh bells on their teams. Friends in Portage sent long
letters followed by packages of garden seeds. At night, however,
as she listened to the howling of the prairie wolves in the ravine, Elizabeth
wondered about the future in Iowa.
In spring
of 1871 came early and warm; almost overnight the snow had left the prairie.
Flocks of wild fowl called as they passed overhead. The pale green
winter wheat blades grew dark green and thick. The gray-pink leaf
buds of the oaks in the ravine interspersed with the pure white of wild
plum and cherry filled the warm still sunshine with spicy fragrance.
She has always loved the country ever since she walked the English lanes
to school as a child. The prairie too, was beautiful.
Another
young couple came to live nearby Mrs. and Mrs. Hugh Rowlands. The bride
was Owen's first cousin, Honor Thomas of Salem. She was the daughter
of Uncle Richard Thomas, whose home had received the John D. Thomas family
in 1844. The Rowlands bought a farm near to Lime Springs village.
Young Rowlands had no experience of farming; his wife Honor was a farm
girl; by combining their efforts under Owen's guidance, the two new families
promised well.
The
summer of 1871 came with a rush. Blue morning-glories of Portage
seeds crowded purple and white petunias beside the log house door.
On the sides of the ravine, purple violets gave way to ripening wild strawberries.
Daily, Elizabeth gathered the sweet fruit along the edge of the tall wheat.
Soon the air
was humming with the sound of reapers. Only by combining machines
and teams could the farmers harvest the great crop of 1871. threshing
followed until the new winter wheat was planted. After snow fell,
processions of sleighs, filled high with rows of white grain sacks slowly
moved along the roads to the grain elevators and freight cars. Financially,
indeed, the new Iowa farmers had started well.
Lime
Springs community was not the lonely prairie of the cowboy ballads.
A Welsh district at the north of the area adjoined a Southern Missouri
group, both made up largely of young families. Socially, the groups
had much lively intercourse, often combining farm machinery and labor.
The Forreston Church of the Welsh was called
"Calvinistic Methodist." The Lime Springs
church of the Missourians, "Methodist Episcopal." No rivalry existed.
The two groups merged at suppers, parties, meetings, even at political
gatherings.
The
second spring, May 5, 1872, a daughter, Harriet Ann, was born to the Thomas'.
Miss Sarah Arthur of Portage, present to welcome the new niece, declared
herself favorably impressed by the clear air and the great vistas of the
prairie country. A second splendid wheat crop followed. Again,
the hum of reapers and the whirr of threshing filled the air. Again
the horses and ox teams ploughed the soil for winter wheat planting.
Again, the sleighs of white grain sacks filed to the elevators.
Perhaps
Owen and Elizabeth Thomas might have spent the remainder of their lives
on their Iowa farm had it not been for the blizzard of the winter of 1872-1873
in which their neighbors, Reverend John Evans, with his wife and infant
daughter perished on the prairie as going the short distance from the Thomas'
house to their own home.
The newspapers
carried far and wide the accounts of the great Iowa blizzard. Elizabeth's
family wrote urging the Thomas' to return at once to Portage. The
oldest Iowa settlers, however, assured the recent comers that no such storm
had occurred in Iowa before since their memory, and that the chance were
that no such blizzard would ever strike Iowa again. The remainder
of the winter was calm and mild.
Accordingly,
Owen rented the Evan's farm, moved into the Evans' larger house, and received
the four Evans' children, three boys in age eight to fourteen years, and
the little girl of four, to remain as members of the Thomas family.
By the end of June 1873, another great
wheat crop stood ready for reaping - so tall that little your-old Annie
Thomas ventured into the tall grain. When her mother went to the
door to call the child to dinner, Annie was nowhere to be found!
Instantly everyone rushed from the table to the outdoors, calling "Annie!
Annie!" But the Hughes' boys, wiser than their elders, called the
Evans' boys and hurried to the edge of the wheat. Here the boys stood
in a row, far apart, yet holding hands and walked slowly abreast into the
grain. In a few moments they had "combed out" little Annie and restored
her to her parents.
On September
4, 1873, a second daughter, Sarah Jane, was born. Both children were
baptized in the Foreston Welsh Church. By the first of October, Owen
and Elizabeth had decided to leave Iowa permanently. the grain, the
stock, and the machinery were sold, and the farm rented to a neighbor.
The final departure caused them much sorrow.
The Evans' relatives had chosen to
place each of the orphaned children in separate families related to their
parents. The boys, fortunately were taken into the farm homes of
their father's people in the Lime Springs community. Little four-year
old Lizzie, whom Mrs. Thomas had grown to love ever since Owen had carried
her, nearly frozen, to his home the day after the blizzard, had also grown
to love her "Mama."
One
day a strange, worried looking woman, Lizzie's aunt from Colorado, called.
The child had never seen her aunt and clung to Elizabeth; her aunt made
no effort to win Lizzie.
"I've come
for Lizzie, my sister's girl--to take her back to my home. I want
her things, too. I am sorry, I'm in an awful hurry. I've come
so far," said the stranger.
As soon
as Elizabeth could collect the child's things, the stranger carried the
bundle and the frightened little Lizzie away. No news of the little
girl cam from her aunt to Mrs. Thomas.
Late in November,
1873, the Thomas couple with two tiny daughters arrived at Miss Arthur's
home in Portage. Their return was heralded by Portage as a proof
of the superiority of Portage as a place of residence. Miss Arthur's
home was at that time crowded with the Samuel Brown children from Milwaukee;
Owen insisted on relieving Miss Arthur of the wood, grocery, and milk bills
of the establishment. He had brought $3,000.00 from Iowa; Elizabeth's
brothers urged him to become a partner in their wool and hide business;
Owen's former commission customers, also, urged him to resume commission
work, which he did for a time. But Owen and Elizabeth were only waiting
until the time when Edward Martin's own house was finished and they could
move to Owen's farm on the Grade Road, adjoining Snail Lake.
Chapter X: New Homes For New Families *Continued*, 1873 - 1880
Besides
the marriage of Owen, Mrs. Harriet Thomas saw the marriages of four others
of her children, also within the decade of 1870-1880:
Richard,
who had studied at the Portage High School during his brother's time of
business, returned to Carroll Academy at Waukesha, after a year's apprenticeship
in a Brass and Iron Foundry in Chicago. In 1873, he married Miss
Florence Wentworth, daughter of a Portage editor and banker. Milwaukee
became their home since Richard had started The Thomas Brass and Iron Company
of West Water Street on a part of the present sit of Gimbel's Store.
the new firm was successful; Richard and Florence built a fine home on
Nineteenth Street; both were active in Calvary Presbyterian Church, and
socially popular among West Side young married people. One year,
Richard's name was among the candidates for Mayor, but he did not win nomination.
In 1875, a
second wedding occurred in the Thomas family. Jane was married at
Snail Lake to Mr. Griffith J. Roberts, a local farmer and builder.
Mr. Roberts bought a farm near Cambria. A year and a half later while
he was moving a barn, an accident took place in which he was injured so
badly that both arms became partially paralyzed. Shortly after, through
the death of a brother, a mining man in New Mexico, Mrs. Roberts inherited
a considerable legacy, fortunately. In 1878, a son John, was born
to Griffith and Jane; they then sold their farm and moved temporarily to
Snail Lake.
In the
autumn of 1876, a third wedding occurred, also at Snail Lake. Mrs.
Thomas' namesake daughter Harriet was united in marriage with Mr. John
Evans of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. A farm near Lime Springs, Iowa, near
Owen's farm, became their home. The bridegroom, however, was not
attracted to farming. He was educated, had been a store clerk, and
a school teacher; consequently, most of the farm management devolved upon
his wife, who was capable and experienced through years of helping her
brother Thomas. Mr. Evans was what is called a "good mixer," and
quickly became a popular figure in Howard County politics. He was
appointed to teach a district school several terms, and also twice re-elected
town clerk. They continued to live on their farm in their pretty
white New England house encircled with young evergreens.
The
year 1879 saw the fourth marriage in Mrs. Thomas' family during the 70's.
Her youngest child Robert, married Miss Mary Jane Owen, daughter of Mr.
Richard Owen of Cambria, Wisconsin. With his brother Thomas, Robert
studied at Carroll Academy; he left to attend a business school in Milwaukee.
Here he was an outstanding student of exceptional ability in business studies;
and on recommendation, he was employed by the Henry Gardiner Fur and Leather
Company of Milwaukee. A few years later he opened a Produce Commission
business, The R. T. Thomas and Company, later the Thomas and Schaus Company
on West Water Street. the firm was one of the original builders of
Commission Row.
Only
one of Mrs. Harriet Thomas' children, Thomas was still single. He
was proving himself worthy of Snail Lake. He helped his mother indoors,
kept her home in good order, attended to her every wish, farmed successfully,
helped other members of the family to settle their homes, and was a very
popular bachelor of his community.
Also, in the
70's, two young nephews, once removed from Wales, came to Snail Lake intending
to become farmers. They were welcomed and invited to make Snail Lake
their home until they could locate themselves. Neither had any experience
of farming. Soon both left for Chicago. Thomas Davis, the elder
of the two, was a trained singer. He soon found work in music stores
and choirs, until he became choir master at St. Paul's Episcopal Church,
and opened his studio for pupils in the Fine Arts Building.
The
younger relative, Thomas Jones, entered business. After several years
he became a member of the Monarch Refrigerating Company. Here he
accumulated fifty thousand dollars by middle life; he died leaving his
money to his sister in Llanerchy Medd, Wales.
Copyright © 2000
Kate Thomas Hancock
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