Delta County CO Archives Biographies.....Vickers , Thomas January 5, 1831 - ?
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Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net July 13, 2007, 2:13 pm

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     Nearly half a century of useful life in the United States has made the 

interesting subject of this brief review well acquainted with and strongly 

devoted to American institutions, and enabled him to contribute materially to 

the progress and development of the country.  He was born in England, at 

Brinsley, on January 5, 1831, where his parents, William and Elizabeth 

(Wharton) Vickers, passed the whole of their lives.  The father was a lime 

burner and actively engaged in this occupation all his days from early 

manhood.  There were seventeen children in the family, eleven of whom grew to 

maturity and three are now living.  Of these Thomas is the oldest and the only 

one who ever became a resident of Colorado.  He was reared and received a 

common-school education in his native land, and in 1857 came to this country, 

locating first for a few months in Iowa.  He then moved to Illinois and soon 

afterward to St. Louis, Missouri, where during the next twenty years he was 

engaged in mining in the vicinity of that city.  In 1878 he transferred his 

energies to the Black Hills in South Dakota, where he remained until fall, 

then came to Colorado, locating at Florence.  Work was scarce there at the 

time, and a few months later he moved to Trinidad and secured employment with 

the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company in the coal mines.  It was not long before he 

became foreman of the mine in which he was working, but at the end of a year 

thereafter he resigned the position and tried his hand for a brief period at 

Ruby camp in Gunnison county.  In the autumn of 1879 he moved his family to 

Ouray for the winter and went to the vicinity of Canon City where he spent the 

winter usefully employed.  In the spring he started on a prospecting tour, 

which he continued until the fall of 1881, when he moved to Delta and bought 

the place on which he now lives.  The Indians left the country in September 

and he arrived in November after all the most desirable land had been taken 

up, so he purchased the rights of a settler to one hundred and sixty acres of 

land for the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars.  On this land he filed and 

afterwards proved up, and found himself in possession of a property steadily 

growing in value.  It adjoins the townsite of Delta and the railroad is built 

across its eastern side.  From the time of his taking possession, he has 

devoted his energies to the improvement and cultivation of the place, and now 

has what he still owns of it in an advanced state of productiveness and 

furnished with good buildings.  His principal crops are alfalfa and potatoes, 

getting of the former an average of six and of the latter six to eight tons an 

acre.  Some years ago he sold twenty-three acres of the ranch at one hundred 

dollars an acre.  This the purchaser laid off into town lots and sold to new 

comers in the town, and it is now covered with the homes of industrious 

citizens.  He also sold seventy-eight acres to a cousin for about what it cost 

him, retaining for his own use about fifty-four acres, all he felt he could 

handle to advantage at his age.  Mr. Vickers was married on February 18, 1862, 

to Mrs. Ann Nicholson, a widow born in Manchester, England, and the daughter 

of John Bent, of that city.  Her mother died while she was young and she 

herself passed away on March 18, 1904.  They had no children of their own, but 

adopted a daughter in Illinois whom they reared to womanhood, and who is now 

married and lives on the home ranch.  Mrs. Vickers died in March, 1904, and is 

buried at Delta.  In politics Mr. Vickers is a steadfast Republican.  His long 

life in this community has been without reproach, and by all the people he is 

highly esteemed.

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905



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