Thomas Anderson Biography Hancock County, WV ********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ********************************************************************** Submitted by Dale Patterson Copied from " History of the Panhandle, being Historical Collections of the Counties of Ohio, Brooke, Marshall and Hancock, West Virginia". Compiled and Written by: J.H. Newton, G.G. Nichols, and A.G. Sprankle Published by: J.A. Caldwell, 1879, Wheeling, W. VA. Biographical Sketches of Hancock County: Thomas Anderson: is a native of Bedford County, Pa. His birth occurred on the 10th day of May, 1810. His father moved to Somerset County, same state, when Thomas was but four years of age. In 1824, they left and removed to Pittsburgh. Whilst residing in this city our subject learned the pottery business with a man named White. In 1831 made a trip down the Ohio, stopping with Thomas Freeman and manufactured brick for him. He made the first fire brick that were ever made in now Hancock County. He continued making brick for two summers and then returned to his home in Pittsburgh, working at the pottery business for a while. Married Miss Martha Beard in 1836, and in the year following he removed to Hancock County, starting in the pottery business which he continued until 1843, when he then engaged in the manufacture of brick in connection with the pottery business. In 1872, he quit the former and devoted his entire attention to the latter, which he still follows. He is the father of six children - four sons and two daughters.