THOMAS.
Michael Thomas in 1745 and 1748 patented six hundred
acres on Hog Creek and Rockfish River. He seems however
to have resided on James River. At the resumption of the
records in 1783, he was active as a magistrate of the county,
and was appointed Sheriff in 1789. He was greatly harrassed
by suits brought against him as incumbent of that office,
owing to the maladministration of his deputies, Edward
Moore and Menan Mills. Perhaps these annoyances incited
the old gentleman to seek the balmy consolations of matrimony
a second time. At all events he entered into those
bonds with Elizabeth Staton in 1792; and in writing to the
Clerk for a license, he stated that he was unable to visit the
county seat himself, but sent his son Ralph, and his grandson
John Carroll, to act in his behalf. He died in 1802. His
children appear to have been Michael, Joseph, Jesse, Ralph,
Edward, James, and a daughter, who was the wife of a Carroll.
The future of the family is unknown, except that
Joseph died in 1797, and Michael in 1826.
John Thomas came to the county from Amherst. He was
twice married, first to Frances, daughter of the elder John
Henderson, and secondly to Frances, daughter of Charles
Lewis Jr., of Buck Island. He lived for a time on a tract of
land which he received from his second father-in-law on Ivy
Creek, and which he sold in 1788 to Robert Draffen, and
afterwards on the land of his son Charles L. Thomas near
Red Hill. He died in 1847. His children by the first marriage
were Warner, Norborne K., James, Elizabeth, the wife
of a Wood, and Lucy, the wife of James Lewis; those by
the second were Charles L., John L., Virginia, and Margaret,
the wife first of Julius Clarkson, and secondly of
Robert Cashmere. In the early part of the century, Warner,
Norborne and John L. did business in Richmond as commission
merchants, under the firm of N. K. Thomas & Co.
About 1815 they purchased the Cole land on the north side
of Tom's Mountain, a thousand and twenty-eight acres;
three hundred they sold to Stephen Moore, and the remainder
was assigned to John L. Thomas, when he retired from
the firm in 1818.
By the will of his uncle Isham Lewis, who died in 1790,
Charles L. Thomas became the owner of more than eighteen
hundred acres on the north fork of Hardware, where Red
Hill Depot now stands. His home was where the family of
John B. Townley now reside. Before his death in 1815, he
leased the eastern part of the place to his brother John L.
during the lives of his parents, for their support, and that
of his sisters. His wife was Margaret, the youngest daughter
of Nicholas Lewis, of the Farm, and his children were
Mary Walker, the wife of Alexander Clayton, Nicholas L.,
Charles, Robert Warner, Frances Elizabeth, the wife first of
Dr. Charles H. Meriwether, and secondly of James Hart,
and John J. The western part of the place was divided
among the children, who in 1830, and some years following,
sold their portions, and emigrated to Montgomery County,
Tennessee. John L. passed his life on the place leased him
by his brother. He was appointed a magistrate in 1838, and
died unmarried in 1846.
