My Genealogy Hound

JAMES THOMAS was born June 18, 1815, and is a son of Michard and Barbara (Shedron) Thomas, the former of whom, a wagon-maker by trade, was born and reared in Adams county, Pa., but emigrated to Stark county, Ohio, when a young man, where he lived until he died. There were nine children in the family, of whom James, the subject of this sketch, was the sixth. He was cast out among strangers, when a small boy, to make his way through the world. At the age of eighteen he began an apprenticeship as a carpenter, and afterwards followed mill-wrighting. Wages in those days, even for skilled mechanics, were small in comparison with what they are now. After he had learned his trade he worked a long time as a journeyman receiving but $10.00 per month, and never received to exceed $1.25 per day. In 1840 he moved to Williams county, Ohio, where he found employment as a mill-wright. He would work all day, then walk two miles to his home and work until a late hour at night clearing ground to raise his crop. He emigrated to Buffalo county, Nebr., in the spring of 1873 and settled on a homestead in Thornton township, where he built a small sod house and began to break prairie for his crop. He went to Gibbon on an errand one day soon after his arrival in the new country, and on his return home his team drowned while attempting to cross Wood river. The bridge gave way the water being so high at the time. This was indeed a sad misfortune to him, for the loss of a team at that time meant a good deal. There was no settlement at all in the vicinity where he lived and wild game was plenty all about him. He has seen as many as five hundred elk in a drove along the Loup river and has killed many a one. He has hauled fuel for twenty miles and was a sufferer on account of the grasshopper raids in 1874 and 1876, and thinks the chintz bugs were brought to this country by the grasshoppers. He has always had great faith in the future development of this country and its bright future when he first settled here. His wife was a daughter of Daniel Strong a native of Connecticut. He emigrated to Ohio and later to De Kalb county, Ind., where he was struck by a falling tree several years afterwards and killed. Mrs. Thomas now resides with her son, Sheldon B., who is an honest hardworking young man.