John Moorhead Thom

THOM ELLIS

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 10/18/2010 at 22:16:07

History of Woodbury County, Iowa 1984

John Moorhead Thom
By Robert W Thom

John M Thom, the father of George Ingraham Thom of Correctionville, was a native of Indiana, but was reared in Pennsylvania. John was married there to Eleanor Jane Ellis, November 28, 1849. She was his second wife and the mother of George Thom.

Mr Thom was a Millwright and in an early day built and operated a mill at Concord, Minnesota, where George Thom was born. In 1867, J M moved to Charlotte, Clinton county, Iowa, where he owned and operated the mill in what is now known as Wild Cat Den State Park.

In 1874 J M moved to Poverty Ridge, now the Ridge Road, north of Correctionville, where he homesteaded what is now the Todd Farm. The house he built still stands in the farm yard of the Todd farm, and is probably the only surviving pioneer home in Woodbury County. In this home, Mrs Thom died February 24, 1876; she is now interred at Poverty Ridge Cemetery, now Good Hope, on Ridge Road at Correctionville.

John M lived the last of his life with a son, Thomas Rhule Thom, Sheriff of Gettysburg, South Dakota, where, in 1903, J M was taken off by a smallpox epidemic. He lies in an unmarked grave. Since a picture of him was unavailable, a picture of his wife is substituted.