My Genealogy Hound

THOMAS K. TOMSON.
Thomas K. Tomson, whose portrait is herewith shown, is extensively engaged in raising cattle and in general farming operations in Dover township, Shawnee County. He has been a resident of this county for many years and is prominently known among its citizens. He was born at Youngstown, Ohio, in 1826, and is a son of Cornelius and Anna (Kyle) Tomson, and grandson of Leffard Tomson, who was a native of Pennsylvania. Our subject’s mother was a daughter of Joshua and Mary (Stewart) Kyle, her father a native of Ireland and her mother, born on a ship in mid-ocean.

Thomas K. Tomson received his educational training in the public schools of Youngstown, Ohio, and in the spring of 1856 made a trip through the Western country. Upon his return to Ohio he was married, in 1857, and shortly after went with his wife to Lee County, Iowa, where he lived on a farm near Fort Madison for two years. He then purchased land near Carthage, in Jasper County, Missouri, but never settled upon it. In 1861 he came to Topeka, Kansas, and the following year took up a quarter-section of land in Wabaunsee County, on which he lived four years. He then sold out and bought and improved a farm four and a half miles east of this farm, living upon it four years. He purchased a farm in Mission township, four and a half miles west of Topeka, and after one year moved to the city, where he purchased a livery and other properties, a portion of which he still owns. In the meantime he engaged extensively in dealing in cattle in partnership with his two sons, John R. and James G., leaving his livery in charge of his partner, who first was a Mr. Dilley and later J. B. Love, who now conducts the establishment. In 1881 Mr. Tomson purchased his present farm of 212 acres, situated in section 35, township 12, range 13, and section 2, township 13, range 13, in Dover township, and all told has some 575 acres. He is a progressive business man of unusual ability, and has attained a high degree of success.

Mr. Tomson was married in 1857 to Elizabeth C. Davis, a native of Ohio, who died in 1878, leaving five children: Anna Bell, now deceased; Ella, who married N. J. Riley, a farmer and stock-raiser living near Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, and has three children, Fred, Bell and William; John H., who married Carrie Loomis, a daughter of Harry J. Loomis, who located in Wabaunsee County in 1856 and still lives there,—they have one child, Marjorie Bell; Frank D., who has a position, at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, paying a salary of $4,000 a year,—he married Tina Coburn, a daughter of Foster D. Coburn, of Topeka, secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, and has two children, Gertrude and Helen; and James G., engaged in the stock-raising business with his father and brother, who married Jean Edna. Beach and lives with his father. Mr. Tomson and his sons make a specialty of Shorthorns, and usually have on hand about 130 head.

Thomas K. Tomson formed a second marital union with Mrs. McArthur, a daughter of Joseph Miller, one of the pioneers of Topeka. She was seven years old when she accompanied her parents to this city and here she resided until her death in 1899. This union resulted in the birth of a son, Joseph M., who is attending Topeka Business College. Fraternally, Mr. Tomson and his son, James G., are Odd Fellows, and his sons, John R., and Frank D., are Masons. Politically, all are stanch Republicans. In religious attachments they belong to the Congregational Church.