Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1924-09-04
Two Ohio Families That Cut Large
Figure in Early Baraboo History

! Writing to his old home paper,
/ the Belmont Chronicle, at st. Glars
vile, Ohio, o. D. Brandenburg d
Madison, gives some interesting
details of the Thomas-Williams
families of Baraboo. saying:
A rare old lady of Quaker type
often no doubt a welcome visitor
long ago in St. Clairsyille is Mrs.
Terrell Thomas, now residing III
the prideful age of 95 with an only
daughter, Mrs. Hannah w. Richie
in Oakland, California. A portion
of each year, however, the Richie
home is at Carmel-by-the-Sea, A
quaint, more or less bohemian col.
ony, some eighty miles south of
San Francisco, on Monterrey Bay
Terrill Thomas was a st. Clairsville
boy, born there Jan. 10, 1926, his
parents being Benjamin and Johan-
ma (TerrelD Thomas, one a native
of Baltimore, the other of Rich
mond, Va. Till q he lived in st.
Clairsyille; then for three years he
served in a wholesale and retail
store at Baltimore; afterward, for
some years, was back in Ohio, as
sociated with his father in.produCe
and in pork packing; finally COM
ing to Wisconsin in 1854 and be-
coming cashier at first ola bank in
Madison, the capital, and locating
later as a banker at Baraboo, in
1857. He became a man of gel
erous means, worth upwards OF
100000, large sum in that early
day; but he was seriously affected
| financially by the chop crash, :"
which produced extended ruin over
all south-central Wisconsin in the
late sixties. His bank passed TO
other hands in 1877, but in that very
year he had an important role in
promoting to realization the eX-
tension of a railway north from
Madison to Baraboo, and beyond.
Mr.. Thomas, dying in 1888, is bur
led at Baraboo.
Brothers and Sisters
A brother, William B. Thomas,
was associated with him in the
bank. but later went to McGregor,
Iowa, then to Chippewa Falls, Wis,
where he died in 1899 and where he
sleeps apart from all his kin. He
was handsome and debonair bach
elor,l quite the social beau, and
soldier too. Thomas Corwin, an
other of the brothers and bearing a
name of highest honor in Ohio,
served honorably in the civil war,
and along in the nineties, acct
dentally fell from a passenger train
near his home at Pomona, Califor-
MIA, and was killed. He left a
widow who resides there still. Her
maiden name was Belle Case, and
her niece, OF the same name, is the
brilliant and helpful wife of United
States Senator Robertl NJ. La Fol.
lette, of whom she was classmate
in the University of Wisconsin.
Children of T. G. Thomas are Miss
Ethel and Arson, the latter a sue
cessful business man at Pomona.
Two other brothers were Oliver
and Charles. Both died as union
soldiers down south early in the
civil war, and with others Of the
family, including sister Belle,
who married Gerard H. Bacon, drug
gist and cranberry grower, rest IN
the slightly Baraboo cemetery. Mrs.
Bacon died in the early eighties.
Margaret Thomas, still another Of
the st. Clairsville girls, married q
Mr.. Chaplin, dying long ago IN
Mississippi.
The daughter of Terrell Thomas,
Mrs. Richie, is the widow of Rev.
Robert Richie, who died many
years ago, after long pastorate at
Oakland, preceded by a period OF
service in Quincy, H., and a yet
earlier one at Baraboo: where the
fairest girl of all the parish became
his bride. One of her sons, Robert
Welles Richie, is a distinguished
short story writer There are
two Richie girls; and all the fam
lily is of finest cultivation.
Old Folks Migrate
BENJAMIN and Johanna Thomas,
following their children, finally
left St. Clairsville and located on
farm near what now is the vii
lage Of Ableman, where the grace
full Baraboo river pierces the ma
iestic. quartzite bluffs some ten
miles west of Baraboo. In 1S40
one Of their daughters, Sarah
Clark Thomas, while yet residing
at st. Clairsville, married Charles
Henry Williams, son OF Gin
cinnati banker, the ceremony being
solemnized according TO Quaker
custom. Nine years later Mr.. Will