Statewide NJ Archives Biographies.....Gabriel THOMAS, 1661 - 1714
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 9, 2008, 1:00 am

Author: Rev. Joseph F. Folsom

THOMAS, Gabriel,
Early Annalist.

  In 1698 there was published at London a book, entitled "An Historical and
Genealogical Account of Pensilvania and of West New Jersey." The author was
Gabriel Thomas, a member of the Society of Friends, who had recently returned
from Philadelphia. Thomas's object was to create through his book a widespread
interest in the country along the Delaware river, and to induce people to go
there and settle. The good man painted a veritable paradise. He wrote, as he
says, "in meer Pity and pure Compassion to the Numbers of Poor Labouring Men,
Women and Children in England, half-starv'd, visible in their meager looks, that
are continually wandering up and down looking for Employment."

  Thomas, born in March, 1661, at Pontemoil, Wales, was one of the first
shipload of immigrants to reach Pennsylvania after that colony had received its
name. The ship was the "John and Sarah" of London, and her captain was Henry
Smith. The vessel arrived at Philadelphia, December 14, 1681. Thomas states that
he then saw the cellar for Penn's house being dug.

  When Thomas returned to England to publish his book, he was aged thirty-six.
During the sixteen years that had elapsed since he saw Penn's cellar digging,
Pennsylvania must have grown marvelously. Thomas in his book says that there
were above two thousand brick houses in Philadelphia alone, and the particulars
he gives of orchards, gardens and mill sites in the country on both sides of the
Delaware furnish apparent proof of wonderful development for so brief a period.

  Thomas fell out with Penn because the great proprietor failed to reward him
for writing his glowing book, with the office of collector of quit-rents for New
Castle county, Pennsylvania. By 1706 Thomas was back in America, settling on a
farm at Prime Hook Neck, in the present State of Delaware. He died in December,
1714. Original copies of the "Account" are valued at a high figure. The most
recent reprint is that of the Scribners in "Narratives of Early Pennsylvania,
West Jersey and Delaware," published in 1912, and edited by Albert Cook Myers.
                          J. F. F.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

MEMORIAL CYCLOPEDIA OF NEW JERSEY

UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF MARY DEPUE OGDEN

VOLUME III
MEMORIAL HISTORY COMPANY NEWARK,  NEW JERSEY
1917


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