WELCOME FAMILY HISTORY SEEKERS!

This book traces the lineage of Joe Grady Thomas through his father, William Elmer Thomas. It begins with George Thomason, a well-known and highly respected printer and publisher in London, England. During 1640 to 1661, George secretly collected over 22,000 pamphlets, generally of a political nature, during the time of a civil war under the reign of King Charles II. If caught, George would have faced certain death. The ways that resourceful George found to continually hide all of that literature for so long was nothing short of divine inspiration! The collection still exists and is known today as the “Thomason Tracts.”

Several of George’s sons emigrated to the American colony of Virginia, including William Thomason. William was a foot soldier who marched to Pennsylvania with the Continental Army under Gen. George Washington. William fought in the Battles of the Brandywine and Germantown, crossed the frozen Delaware River where he engaged in the Battle of Trenton, New Jersey, and overcame sickness during the harsh winter of 1777 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. His son Jeremiah Thomason migrated through North Carolina to Tennessee, where his son Micajah Thomason, a Confederate soldier during the Civil War, was captured and sent to live out the rest of the war in deplorable conditions at the Union prison camp, Ft. Morton. When he returned home in Tennessee, he married Mary Ann McManus, a descendant of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. A daughter was born to Micajah and Mary Ann who they named Catherine Thomason. Catherine grew up in a Christian home that frequently welcomed displaced Cherokee children to live and be educated. Catherine herself grew up to marry a Blackfoot Indian and have a son who they named Oad (“born while travelling”). As their baby’s name implied, the Blackfoot Indian traveled on elsewhere leaving Catherine to raise her son, who she renamed Thomas T. Thomas. Catherine’s cousin, Micajer Thomason(who was named for his great-uncle of the Civil War), married Birdie Sprinkle. The newlyweds left Tennessee to settle in the wild unknown of Mansfield, Texas, barely west of Dallas. Micajer, a farmer, and Birdie, a school teacher, were known around town as “Birdie ‘n’ Cage!”