♂Thomas Wilkinson

Thomas Wilkinson (born about 1821) was a merchant, produce dealer and sometime wool carder of Edwards and Wabash counties, Illinois, whose working life is told in a sketch in an 1883 county history. The history records that with his brother William he built boats, loaded them with produce and ran them out on the Bonpas to the Wabash and Mississippi rivers. He was the second great-grand-uncle of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), the brother of William Robert Wilkinson (1816–1886), Nancy’s second great-grandfather.

Early life

A FamilySearch index of christenings gives his baptism at Sedbergh, Yorkshire, on 1 October 1821 and writes his mother’s name as Nanny, where the tree names Ann Rah/Rae. His parents were Thomas W. Wilkinson (1767–1840) and Ann, and the county history names him thirteenth of their fourteen children. The family emigrated in 1830 and reached Edwards County, Illinois, in 1837. The history places his schooling there after his mother’s death, at the Ridge school-house, a pioneer building put up by the neighbors in 1841 or 1842, with split-log benches and plank floors, which also served as a meeting place for worship. His teacher, a Scotsman named John Correy, took a great interest in him.

Marriages

In 1844 he married Eliza Chapman, a widow and the daughter of the Rev. John Scott, whose family had come from Leeds in 1841 and settled in Edwards County. Her son by her first marriage, Thomas S. Chapman, enlisted in Company A of a Missouri infantry regiment in the Civil War and died in service. Thomas and Eliza had two children, John and Sarah, who both died young, and Eliza died on 20 December 1851. She was buried in the Bethsaida burying ground. On 21 November 1852 he married Rebecca, widow of H. B. Roney and daughter of Ira and Eleanor Keen. The history counts nine children of this second marriage, several of whom died in childhood.

Trade

In the winter of 1847 he packed pork at Pinhook, in Edwards County. The next summer he helped put up a carding machine and learned wool carding from Major David Ingraham, and that winter he and William bought and packed pork, corn, oats and other produce. In 1850 the two brothers went into partnership: they sold goods, bought produce and built the boats that carried it to market. A branch store at Timberville, on the Wabash, was unsuccessful. He moved to Friendsville, in Wabash County, on 15 December 1857, and in 1862 went into a partnership with James Foster that the history calls disastrous.

Census indexes place him in Edwards County in 1850 and at Friendsville in 1860 and 1870, which agrees with the history’s dates. Like William, he was a Whig until 1856, when he voted for John C. Frémont, and he voted for every Republican candidate afterwards. No date or place of death is recorded for him.

Notes

The history’s sketch gives no birth date. The 1850 census index gives his birth year as 1821 and the indexes of 1860 and 1870 give 1822.

The history’s closing summary credits his first marriage with one son, two daughters and four grandsons, while the sketch itself names only two children of that marriage, both dead young.