Colthurst, Thomas

COLTHURST, REISTINE, LAWSON

Posted By: mjv (email)
Date: 9/9/2020 at 14:36:38

Thomas Colthurst, of Oregon Township, is a stone cutter by trade, and is numbered among the pioneers of Washington County. He was born in Lancaster County, England, in 1806, and came to America in 1842, settling in Washington County. He married Fannie Reistine, a native of Kentucky, by whom he had two children: William, deceased, and Isabel, the wife of Theodore Neal, of this county. She died in 1848, and Mr. Colthurst in 1850 wedded Ann Lawson, in Louisa County. She was born in 1822. There were four children in the family: Thomas, the subject of this sketch; Isaac: Mattie, the wife of Cal. Pearson, of this township, and Ettie, the wife of James Stewart, also of this township. Mary died many years ago.

Mr. Colthurst came to this county in 1844, and first purchased 120 acres of timber and forty of prairie land. He added by subsequent purchases until he had about 600 acres of well-improved land, the result of a life of hard labor and good management. His son, Isaac L. Colthurst, was married in Des Moines County, Iowa, in 1882, to Bertha Rogers, the daughter of John T. and Melinda Rogers. She was born in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, in 1860. They have one child, Carrie. He has had the management of his father’s farm for six years, in connection with 200 acres of his own land.

Mr. Colthurst is a member of the Baptist, and Mrs. Colthurst of the Unitarian Church. In politics, he is a Republican. Isaac C. Colthurst is following in the footsteps of his father, and is making one of the best farmers in Oregon Township. He is a young man of good habits, and is highly respected wherever known. A pioneer among pioneers, Mr. Colthurst is a well known to almost all the old settlers of Washington County, and enjoys the respect and confidence of all who know him, this not from the fact that he is an old settler, but because he is worth in every respect.

Source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Washington County, Iowa (1887). Excerpt from Biographical Sketch of Thomas Colthurst, page 244.