BIOGRAPHY: Hon. James J. THOMAS, Cambria County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by David Monahan. USGENWEB ARCHIVES (tm) NOTICE All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information are included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cambria/ ____________________________________________________________ From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 149-50 ____________________________________________________________ Hon. James J. THOMAS HON. JAMES J. THOMAS, an ex-member of the House of Representative of Pennsylvania, and who is in the foremost rank among those leaders of that branch of industry which enables Pennsylvania to take a prominent place among the agricultural States of the Union, is a son of John and Mary A. (Campbell) Thomas, and was born at Kaylor station, Cambria county, Pennsylvania, September 27, 1838. The Thomas family is one of the many honest, honorable and substantial families of the United States that trace their transatlantic ancestry to Wales,- -Thomas, a paternal ancestor of the subject of this sketch, was a soldier in the English army. He was stationed in Ireland, where he afterwards married and resided until his death. Michael Thomas, one of the descendants of the Welsh soldier, was born and reared on the “Emerald” Island, and held an office under the English government until 1820, in which year he came to Cambria county and settled at Munster, where he died in 1835, aged eighty-five years. He married a Miss Mulhern, who was a member of an old Irish family, and by whom he had eight children—four sons and four daughters. The second child born to them was John Thomas (father), whose birth place was in county Donegal, in 1792, and who came with his parents in 1820 to Cambria county, where he died on his farm at Kaylor Station, in September, 1887, when lacking but five years of being a centenarian. He was a man of good education and followed teaching in Ireland, and teaching and farming in Cambria and Indiana counties after coming to this State. He quit teaching in 1864, and many prominent and successful men of the older citizens in this and Indiana counties ascribe their success to the instruction which they received when pupils in his schools. He voted for every presidential nominee of the Democratic party, from Andrew Jackson down to 1894, and although a man of standing and influence, he never sought for office, and never held but one office which was the postmastership at Munster, under Van Buren's administration. He was a member of the Catholic church, and in 1836 was married by the illustrious Father Gallitzin, to Mary A. Campbell, who died September, 1870, aged fifty-seven years. Her father, Patrick Campbell, was a native of the North of Ireland, and came out in 1800 to what is now Cambria county, where he purchased a farm and reared a large family. To Michael and Mary Thomas were born a family of three sons and eight daughters: Ann; Hon. Jas. J.; Mary J., wife of Frank Quinlan, a professor and county office holder in Michigan; Margaret, Bridget and Susan, residing on the home farm; Cecelia, now know as Sister Mary Gonzaga, of the Sisters of Charity of the Greensburg convent; Philip now dead; Sarah, wife of L. W. Weakland, of Cumberland, Maryland, and Ellie, who died in a convent in Altoona; she was known as Sister Mary Joseph. James J. Thomas attended the public schools long enough to learn to spell, and then received his education at the hands of his father in private instruction. He was reared on the farm, and in 1858 became a teacher in the common schools, where he taught, with few intermissions, until 1892. While teaching he also gave close attention to the management of his farm and made a special study of agriculture. He owns and resides upon a farm of one hundred and thirty-eight acres of good land in the eastern part of Carroll township, where he has been successful for the last twenty years as a general farmer. On April 22, 1867, Mr. Thomas married Tillie A. Glasser, a daughter of Frank Glasser, of St. Boniface, this county. Hon. James J. and Mrs. Thomas have six children: John F.; Mary L.; Annie; Samuel; Emma, and Otto. Of these children Annie and Samuel are teachers. James J. Thomas is a Catholic in religion, being a member of the Catholic church, and in politics has always been a strong democrat. He has held the most important of his townships offices, was elected and served during 1877-78 as a member of the legislature from Cambria county, and during Cleveland's first administration was storekeeper in the United States revenue department of the Twenty-third district, comprising a larger part of western Pennsylvania. In 1892 he was re-elected to the legislature of Pennsylvania, and in the session of 1893 was appointed by Speaker Thompson, as a member of the congressional and judicial apportionment committees, and the committees on vice and immorality, and constitutional reform. He also served as vice-president of what was known as the Agricultural Caucus, of which the venerable John Cessna, of Bedford, was president, and Senator Critchfield, of Somerset, was secretary, and was a member of a sub-committee on congressional apportionment with representative Lawrence as chairman, and Messrs. Richmond, Cotton and Ritter as fellow-members. He served during Lee's first invasion of Pennsylvania in the Fourth Pennsylvania regiment of emergency men until the regiment was discharged after the battle of Antietam. He was appointed on a committee of five to draft a road bill. He was also selected by the friends of the Miles tax-bill—a reform measure—as one of a committee to take charge of the bill on the floor of the House. While prominent and active as a legislator in securing needed agricultural legislation, yet he has labored effectively for the farming interests, not only of his county, but for the whole State, in the Pennsylvania State Grange and the Pennsylvania State Board of Agriculture, of which organizations he is a member and an officer. He is a member and the master of Concord Grange, No. 1125, Patrons of Husbandry, and a member of the executive committee of the State grange, and when the Cambria County Mutual fire Insurance company was organized, August 1, 1895, in the true interests of grange members, he was made a director and elected as its president. In the autumn of 1895, in recognition of his many valuable services in behalf of farming, Mr. Thomas was elected chairman of the committee appointed by the State Board of Agriculture to formulate a basis for the re-organization of the State Board of Agriculture rendered necessary by the creation of the State Department of Agriculture, which had previously placed him on its list of lecturers for farmers' county institutes. James J. Thomas, whose life-career has been in the interests of agriculture, education and politics, is a man who has won public confidence and whose character is above the breath of suspicion.