Yolo-El Dorado County CA Archives Biographies.....Thomas, Charles S. 1810 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com December 8, 2005, 5:45 pm

Author: Tom Gregory

CHARLES S. THOMAS

    The activities of a generation of patriotic and resourceful citizens have
wrought many transformations in the agricultural aspect and commercial
enterprises of Yolo county since there passed from his useful toil one long
identified with its progress and a promoter of its early business development.
The value of the citizenship of C. S. Thomas during the years of his pioneer
labors can scarcely be overestimated. Coming to the county in a very early day,
he discerned its possibilities and often predicted its ultimate prosperity and
wealth, this, too, at a time when the most optimistic spirit but dimly discerned
the hidden resources of the region. His judgment was keen, his loyalty to county
was deep and his contributions of time and means to local development generous
and cordial. All in all, his character was of the type so indispensable to the
evolution of a frontier region into a highly civilized community.

    The changes of a busy existence brought Mr. Thomas to a point far distant
from his birthplace at New Haven, Conn., and into surroundings radically
different from those familiar to his boyhood. Born in 1810, he was still quite
small when the family took up the journey toward the west. Finding a desirable
location in New York state, they took up land and he entered upon the task of
earning a livelihood as a tiller of the soil. It followed that he had neither
the time nor the opportunity to attend school and the broad fund of information
he later acquired was the result of habits of close observation and thoughtful
reading. The attaining of his majority marked another change in his environment,
for he then became a pioneer of Wisconsin and settled among the frontiersmen of
Green county, where for one term he served as county sheriff.

    In company with a party of emigrants Mr. Thomas crossed the plains to
California during the summer of 1853 and after his arrival he engaged in mining
at Placerville. The year 1855 found him a pioneer of Yolo county, where he
settled at Knight's Landing and embarked in business pursuits. For a long period
he held rank among the leading men of the locality and his general store was a
center of trade for the pioneers coming from every direction. His leading
occupation was that of grain buyer and in the early era of the settlement the
farmers were accustomed to haul their grain to his elevator, and then buy at his
store such necessities as they wished to take back home with them. The grain was
hauled to town in "prairie schooners" and was loaded from the elevator into
barges, which conveyed it down the Sacramento river to the markets. When Mr.
Thomas removed from Knight's Landing to Woodland in 1872 he resumed the grain
business and until his death ten years later he bought and sold grain in very
large quantities. For many years before his demise he had the inestimable
benefit of the co-operation and cheerful counsel of his capable wife, whom he
had married in Monroe, Wis., in 1848 and who was Miss Josephine Louisa Wallace,
a native of Galena, Ill. Mrs. Thomas survives her husband and in her pleasant
home at No. 658 First street, Woodland, surrounded by the comforts that give
pleasure to age and ministered to by children and friends, she passes the
twilight of her useful existence in quiet contentment and finds her highest
happiness in the welfare and society of her daughter, Mrs. Addie E. Baker, and
son, Charles F. Thomas, both of whom are living in Woodland.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

HISTORY OF YOLO COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
TOM GREGORY
AND OTHER WELL KNOWN WRITERS
ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [1913]

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