BIO: Thomas Reynolds, Sr., Jefferson County, PA

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Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania, Including 
the Counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion, Containing 
Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens. 
Chicago, Ill.: J. H. Beers, 1898, pages 1088-1090.
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THOMAS REYNOLDS, SR., deceased.  In a few favored communities there 
have been characters peerless in life, whose matchless deeds and ideal 
worth transcend the flight of time, and grow rich and mellow as the 
years speed on toward eternity.  It may be that a more fitting estimate 
of the strength and nobility of the character of Thomas Reynolds may be 
formed to-day than at the time of his death, less than a score of years 
ago.
  It is well within the bounds of modest diction to make the plain 
unvarnished statement that his was a master mind, resourceful and 
fertile in expedient.  Wedded until death to the principles of 
unflinching truth; gifted with crystal insight into human motives; 
righteously indignant at wrong and oppression, deep and broad in mental 
grasp; and, withal, possessed of a wonderful reserve force, rarely 
called into action.  In stature he was above six feet in height, and in 
physique he was knit from the stock of sturdy pioneers, yet to these he 
added a grace of carriage and a charm of manner as rare as it was 
attractive.  Looking to the ancestry of Thomas Reynolds, it was 
American for four generations, extending back over two hundred years to 
the early settlement of New Jersey, when an honored family of 
Chichester, England, of noble lineage, was engrafted upon the human 
life of a new continent.  In the year 1661, more than a century before 
the immortal Declaration of Independence, Henry Reynolds, after a 
tempestuous voyage of twenty-two weeks from England, landed upon the 
hospitable shores of the New World.  He first settled at Burlington, N. 
J., and later at Chester, Penn., he and his descendents becoming 
extensive free holders of land, now incorporated in the City of 
Philadelphia.  Ten children were born to Henry Reynolds and his wife 
Prudence, and the third of these was Francis, born August 15, 1684.  
Samuel Reynolds, son of Francis and Elizabeth Reynolds, was born 
January 31, 1735, and married Jane Jones, daughter of John and Mary 
(Goodwin) Jones, born 1734.  Samuel died February 26, 1786, his wife in 
1779.  Of their seven children, Thomas Reynolds, the eldest, was born 
January 2, 1759.  He married Nancy Reynolds, and to them were born the 
following seven children:  Mary, Jane, Abram, Samuel, Tilton, William 
and Thomas.  The youngest of these, Thomas, the subject of this sketch, 
was born on the parental homestead, Near Parkesburg, Chester county, 
Penn., September 19, 1807.  Such, in brief, is his paternal ancestry.  
His father, Thomas, died July 7, 1837, aged seventy-eight years, his 
mother January 5, 1845.  The pioneer life in those early days developed 
strong types of character.  The father of our subject was a man whose 
mind was attuned to the voices and moods of nature; within his memory 
were stored the rudimentary facts and principles which then constituted 
and education.  He was a man of deep thought, and carved for his own 
mental nurture a system of philosophy.  To his children he was a friend 
and companion, and under his tutelage young Thomas developed those 
trained and thorough methods of thought which he always afterward 
displayed.  Crude as the educational methods and advantages of that day 
may have been, Thomas Reynolds acquired a broad and deep mental grasp, 
and particularly did he excel in the gift of language.  As was the wont 
in those times the boy must learn a trade, and it fell to his lot to 
become a proficient currier and shoemaker.  He followed these trades 
honestly and faithfully, but his mind overleaped his work and soared to 
other and higher realms.  Teaching was a more congenial avocation, and 
for the task he was eminently qualified.  Visiting New York at the 
suggestion of relatives, with a view to beginning in a metropolitan 
life a career for himself, the air seemed close and stifling, as he 
expressed it, "the streets were too narrow."  And in 1835 this ardent 
lover of nature fled from the civilization to the free air and primeval 
forests of Western Pennsylvania.  His brothers, Tilton and William, had 
preceded him thither, and were comfortably located on lands that are 
now the site of Rathmel village.  Samuel, another brother, came later 
and sojourned for a time in the same locality. 
  For a few years Thomas lived with his brother William, when not 
engaged in other communities in teaching school, in shoemaking, or in 
following his favorite sport of hunting.  He was a social favorite, 
tall and straight as an arrow, genial in manner, yet tireless and 
determined in whatever he undertook; much as he loved to rove, his 
practical mind persuaded him of the necessity of a more commercial 
life.  He built a small tannery on land now occupied by James A. 
Cathers, and after his marriage, in 1842, to Juliana Smith, he located 
permanently on the present site of Reynoldsville, and built a tannery 
and sawmill near where the Reynolds residence now stands.  They were 
the only manufacturing industries in that vicinity from 1840 to 1860.  
His brother, Tilton, in 1839, located on the summit of the mountain 
above Rathmel, and with his brother, William, started a mercantile 
establishment and secured a post office.  It was called Prospect Hill.  
In 1848 the post office was removed by Tilton Reynolds to his brother 
Thomas', two and a half miles west of him.  The Post-office Department, 
February 23, 1850, took notice of the change and christened the office 
Reynoldsville, in honor of its then incumbent, and continued Thomas 
Reynolds postmaster thereof.  Thus the town received its name.  
Although he had quite a little village started, yet it was called by 
the post office as Prospect Hill till the postmaster-general named it 
in his honor.  Mr. Reynolds had previously surveyed Winslow township, 
and named it in honor of his friend, Judge Winslow.  He was a guiding 
spirit in the little settlement.  For many years, and until his death, 
he acted as postmaster.  He induced the first physician to locate in 
the village, and in various ways contributed to its advancement.
  Yet, while public spirited in an eminent degree, Mr. Reynolds 
repeatedly declined office.  The subject of personal advantage in a 
public capacity was repugnant to his nature, and the postmastership, 
which clung to him so long, was borne as a duty rather than an honor or 
a position of gain, for the emoluments in those days were not 
commensurate with the time and attention required.  The death of this 
distinguished pioneer occurred May 16, 1881.  To many he had seemed 
eccentric, for he was not understood.  His life was fashioned on heroic 
lines.  Beneath an inscrutable exterior burned deep emotions, an 
uncompromising detestation of shams and hypocricies, a keen wit, a 
broad humor, a sympathy for humanity.  He was gentle and tender as a 
woman, yet firm and unyielding for right and truth.  Of a nature like 
his were martyrs made.
  His wife survived him seven years.  She had been a worthy helpmeet.  
Juliana Smith was the descendent of William Smith, who emigrated to 
America from Gloucester, England, in 1635, and settled in Boston.  Here 
he was one of the victims of that religious persecution, which forms 
the one blot in New England Colonial history, and for his faith was 
driven from his new home.  With forty sympathetic Boston families, he 
settled at Hempstead, Long Island, in 1639, and finally perished by 
Indian hatred and treachery.  From this ancestry the line of descent to 
Mrs. Reynolds was through Abraham Smith, Isaac Smith, 1657-1746, who 
died at Hempstead Plains; Jacob Smith, 1690-1757; Isaac Smith, who was 
born in 1722, and emigrated from Queens to Dutchess county in 1669.  
Jacob Smith, 1746-1810; Uriah Smith, 1771-1819, and Valentine Hulet 
Peters Smith, 1796-1860, the father of Mrs. Reynolds.  Valentine H. P. 
Smith married Rebecca Spraque, daughter of John Sprague, of Chateaugay, 
N.Y.  Of their four children, Juliana was the third.  She was seven 
years old when her father emigrated from New York to Jefferson county, 
Penn., and her girlhood was spent under the hardships of pioneer life.  
She possessed the Christian virtues in an eminent degree, though a 
member of no Church, and as the wife of Thomas Reynolds, whom she 
married in early womanhood, she was renowned for the sweet graces of 
charity and good will, and during the Civil war her sympathies and 
efforts were actively exerted in behalf of the Union soldiers, and her 
eldest son, a mere lad, was tearfully given to his country's service.  
For meritorious service he rose to the rank of captain.  Mrs. Reynolds 
died at Covington, Kentucky, July 7, 1888, succumbing to a surgical 
operation for the removal of a cancer from her face; her remains repose 
beside those of her husband in Beulah cemetery, on part of the Reynolds 
farm.  
  Seven children were born to Thomas and Juliana Reynolds, as follows:  
Tilton,  born October 26, 1843.  He enlisted as a member of Company H, 
105th P. V. I., and was commissioned its captain.  He married Ida 
McCalister, and has two children - Ruth and Arthur;