Author: Thomas, John
Biography:
THOMAS, John (1792-1866: ancestry.com)
The son of Lydia (Hotchkiss) and John Thomas, he was born in Woodbridge CT. He entered Yale (Class of 1811) but did not graduate; however, he was granted a degree in 1814 after studying law in New Haven and being called to the bar. He married Caroline Beers of New Haven in 1815; they had more than one child but only one son who survived them. In 1824 they moved to Cortlandville (or Cortland Village), where he delivered the Fifth of July Oration for that year--apparently his only separate publication before his poem on intemperance in 1832. The poem is dated from Brooklyn. Elected to the State Assembly in Albany in 1837, he was identified with the cause of abolition of slavery. In 1860 the Thomases went to live with their son in Galesburg IL, where they died just a year apart and are buried together in the Hope Cemetery. (Dexter; ancestry.com 23 Nov. 2020; findagrave.com 23 Nov. 2020) HJ