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Transcribed from "An Illustrated History of The Big Bend Country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin counties, State of Washington",  published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.


     GEORGE W. THOMAS, a farmer living three miles south of Davenport, was born on February 22, 1855  in Washington county, Maryland. There he grew to manhood, attended school in Keedysville, and gained a good common school education.  In addition he learned the cabinet maker's trade here. When twenty-one he removed to Woodland, California, and worked on a farm for three years.  In the spring of 1880 he came from San Francisco to Portland, Oregon, thence to Walla Walla and later to Lincoln county where he filed on his present home as a homestead.  He came with little money, and found it necessary to work on salary for the first year in order to earn the necessary means of improving his farm, after which he engaged in the occupation of farming and stock raising.
     The parents of Mr. Thomas were Josiah and Mary C. (Deaner) Thomas, both born, reared, and both died in the state of the subject's birth; the father dying about seven years ago, and the mother in 1903.  The brothers and sisters of our subject are, Mrs. Arbelian Grimm, Mrs. Winnie A. Doub, Abram J., Mrs. Emma K. Snively, and Mrs. Anna E. Lovell.  Mr. Thomas had another brother, Samuel, who is now dead.
     On December 1, 1890, occurred the marriage of George W. Thomas to Mary E. (Hobby) Anderson, a native of California.  Her father, David Hobby, was from the state of New York, and a "forty niner" in the state of California, and for a number of years was a miner near Sacramento.  He is now deceased.  Her mother, M. M. Hobby, is now living near Davenport.
     Mr. Thomas is a member of the A. F. & A. M., of Davenport.  He now has twelve hundred and fifty acres of land, mostly good grain land and well improved, where he lives, besides two and a half sections of pasture land near Rocklyn.  His farm house and out buildings are among the best in the county, and he is making a decided success of his business of farming and raising cattle, horses, and hogs.  He is another example of the poor man starting in the Big Bend without means and rapidly rising to a position of comfort and independence.
 

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