Notes for Benjamin F. Thomas: B. F. Thomas was a surveyor who first surveyed the area from the Laramie Plains to Chadron.
Minnie Thomas Weir, wrote, "My father's object (after arriving in the panhandle) was to locate the settlers on their homesteads, and to do any other surveying, he being well qualified for that kind of work. He joined a tiny group of temporary shacks and many tents at Summit whose name changed to Bowen and later changed to Harrison in honor of Benjamin Harrison, our newly elected President."
Benjamin F. Thomas was one of the first elective officers, first county surveyor and the first county superintendent in Sioux County, NE. (Nebraska Historical Society.] He also served as the first Justice of the Peace.
B. F. THOMAS SURVEYOR AND GENERAL LAND AGENT OF FIFTEEN YEARS EXPERIENCE
Is well acquainted with the U. S. land laws and rulings of this department. Keeps plats of Sioux County and eastern Wyoming, and has done work from Chadron to the Laramie plains, and from North Platte to the Dakota line. He furnishes good entertainment to visitors and emigrants in this the most wonderful corner of Nebraska, 8 miles north west of Harrison. Have 640 acres of the best winter pasture to be let.
(Ad run in the Harrison Sun.)
B. F. THOMAS PASSES AWAY
B. F. Thomas one of the early settlers of the community passed peacefully away on June 13, 1926 at his home in Cache, Okla. where he and his wife have lived nearly eighteen years, having lived to the ripe old age of 85 years, 4 months and 1 day.
He had been an invalid, bedfast, most of the time, since he had a stroke of paralysis on last Christmas Eve.
Funeral services were held at the Christian Church on Tuesday, June 15, where a large number of friends gathered with beautiful floral tributes to pay their last respects to one whose life has been a fine example of loving Christian faith.
A number of G. A. R. comrades and their wives with a beautiful display of flags reverently followed as his body was borne into the church.
Mr. Thomas leaves a wife and nine children to morn there loss. They are: Mrs. Lorena Witham, St. Paul, Minnesota; Mrs. Minnie Weir, Lamar, Colorado; Ben O. Thomas, Omaha, Nebraska; Mrs. Alice, Blunt, Cache, Oklahoma; Albert M. Thomas, Deora, Colorado; Arthur B. Thomas, McClave, Colorado; Nora Miller, San Antonio, Texas; Clare N. Thomas, Cache, Oklahoma; Dorothy Woodside, Aurora, Missouri. Mrs. Woodside, and family were present at the funeral and they with Mrs. Thomas accompanied the casket to the old home Greenfield, Missouri for the last fair well. He was laid to rest beside his mother and daughter, Mrs. Lily Williams, who preceded him many years ago.
Mrs. Thomas will remain with her daughter at Aurora until fall when she will return to her home at Cache, Oklahoma.
More About Benjamin F. Thomas: Burial: June 15, 1926, Green Field, Dade, Missouri. Education: Civil Engineer. Occupation: Surveyor and later in life a teacher..
More About Benjamin F. Thomas and Sarah Roseannah Hamlin: Marriage: October 17, 1864, Exira, Audubon, Iowa.
Children of Benjamin F. Thomas and Sarah Roseannah Hamlin are:
Winona Thomas, b. June 6, 1865, Exira, Audubon, Iowa1080, d. 1869, Died of scarlet fever..
Benjamin F. Thomas (b. February 1841, d. June 13, 1926)
Notes for Benjamin F. Thomas: