Tracy, Thomas Thompson 1814 – 1910

TRACY, THOMPSON, SARGENT, TALLMAN, FORD, BARROWS

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 8/22/2023 at 10:17:22

“Uncle” Thos. Tracy Goes to His Reward.
After several weeks of suffering, “Uncle” Tom Tracy passed from this life into the one where there is no pain or suffering, at an early hour Tuesday morning, and if anyone ever receives their reward for the good they have done to their fellow-men on earth, “Uncle” Tom Tracy will certainly receive his.
For the past few years he had been afflicted with a cancer of the face, and would probably have died from the effects of this, had he not have fallen about twelve weeks ago and fractured his hip bone, which was the cause of shortening his life.
Thomas Thompson Tracy, son of Jesse and Sarah (Thompson) Tracy, was born at Fairlee Pond, Orange Grove county, Vt., July 22, 1814. In 1815, his parent moved to Cornish, N. H., and thence to Plainfield, an adjoining town, where they resided until the spring of 1828, when they moved to Stowe, Vt., into a log shanty, with only a half acre of land cleared around it. This was his home until he was 21 years old, working out in summers and staying at home in winters, so that his father could go away teaching school. In 1837, he went to Johnson, Vt., and engaged work as a tailor’s apprentice, and in 1838, started in the tailoring business at Morrisville, Vt., where he resided until May 1855. He then came to Illinois where he stayed until November, 1863, when he moved to Bremer county, Iowa, and located four miles south of Nashua, and had lived in this vicinity ever since.
When Thomas was twelve years of age he worked in a woolen factory at West Windsor, Vt, for eight months doing a man’s work for $3 per month. During the winter after he was fourteen and fifteen, he attended school two months each winter under the following conditions: He had to go a half mile every morning and night to take care of a cow, cut the wood for the log house, and go two miles through woods and across lots with snow from two to four feet deep, to get to school.
When he started in the tailoring business in Morrisville, in 1833, there was but little work to be done during the summer so he put in his spare time at carriage and carpenter work until the winter of 1842. Having built a new shop in which to do wood work, and demand for custom work in tailoring having ceased on account of a wave of religious excitement, in the spring of 1843 Thomas gave up his work as a tailor and gave his whole attention to carriage work and carpentry.
In the spring of 1847 he drew up a subscription to get means to build an academy in Morrisville, to be called “The People’s Academy.” He was opposed by all the leading business men, but succeeded in raising an amount that built a $2,000 building, all in notes but $50 cash. The school proved to be as good as any in the state for almost fifty years. Now there is a new and beautiful building on the same site.
In 1851 he bought the woolen factory in Morrisville, built an addition to it and put in all kinds of machinery for making carriages and doing carpenter work. Then he employed from ten to twenty hands in the wood, ironing, painting and trimming shops and out of doors, doing all the building of the village.
In 1854 he was elected to represent the town in the general assembly by a vote the nearest unanimous of any ever given in the town.
In 1855 he went to Illinois to sell a patent for some men in Burlington Vt. But the mail was robbed in Chicago and all the papers giving territory and power of attorney lost, and not knowing the cause of the delay he went to work in Dixon as a carpenter, working as under-workman on G. L Herrick’s house, which was already under way.
Thomas’ family moved out to Illinois the last of August, 1855. During the winter he built a shanty opposite the Grand De Tour, eight miles up Rock river from Dixon. In 1856, he was foreman on the three-story brick store for the same Mr. Herrick, the best store in the county then. When this structure was competed the carpenter work came to a standstill which lasted two years.
In 1857, there was a collapse of the wild cat banks which shut up all business. From then until he left the state in 1863, he carried on land upon shares, worked at his trade and did almost anything to live. His two sons, Henry and George, went to the war and left him with a large farm, with no help available.
In the spring of 186{?}, his health broke down and he gave up the farm. His wife went to Vermont to visit her friends and he came into Iowa in November, moving with a big load on a wagon to Bremer county, Iowa, being eleven days on the road, with the theremometer{sic} at zero some of the time. His family came to Cedar Falls by cars, also the rest of his household goods and some tools. The place he bought consisted of 40 acre of land and an old log house on the Cedar River in Polk township. The next season he traded the 40 acres for an 80 acre farm and bought {?} more, making the old Tracy farm 4 miles south of Nashua. In the fall of 18{?}, he moved to Nashua and stayed until March 1886, having broken some of the land and putting up a house he moved onto the farm. In 1866 he built the schoolhouse in the Woodcock district in Bremer county, and in 1867 built the schoolhouse in the John O’Donnell district in Riverton township, Floyd Co.
In 1875 and 1876 he manufactured and sold Middling’s Purifier for making patent flour. In 1877, being so crippled with rheumatism that he could not work on the farm, he bought a few bees and kept them with varying success; having two to three hundred stands. In 1884 he moved to Pearl Rock, 8 miles south of Nashua. In 1902 his fourth wife died and he went to live with his son, Elmer E. Tracy.
Thomas Tracy had four wives by whom he had nine children, five sons and four daughters: Henry by the first wife (Hannah Sargent) died in the army; Seth by the second (Sarah Tallman); Louise and George by the third (Belinda Ford). Louise married Otto Wettstein, of Rochelle, Ill., died leaving three children, one died soon. Jenny, Abby, Frank, Elmer and Ara by the fourth wife (Cordelia E. Barrow). Frank died of diphtheria and was buried March 4, 1880; it being his 21st birthday, and Abby who died Nov. 25,1894.
As a producer of wealth Thomas was a success; as an accumulator of wealth he was a failure, having more public spirit than private greed. His creed was promotion of all organization founded upon virtue and honesty for the advancement of the human race; his aim of life was the happiness of others.
The funeral was held at the E. E. Tracy home Wednesday at 1:30 p. m., Rev. Kirwin officiating, and the remains were laid to rest in the cemetery at Plainfield.

Source Unknown – probably local newspaper

Transcriber’s Note: Find a Grave shows he died Aug. 2, 1910 and is buried in the Willow Lawn Cemetery in Plainfield
The numbers are very hard to read so if there was a question, I show a question mark.