Thomas Farrow (abt. 1780 - aft. 1840)

Born about 1780 in Loudoun County, VA

Ancestors

Descendants

Died after 1840 after about age 60 in Indiana

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Biography

Birth in Virginia

The man who brought the Farrow surname to Boone County, Indiana was born in Loudoun County, Virginia in about 1780. He was the son of Elizabeth (Masterson) and Joseph Farrow, a wagoner who ran a freight hauling business on or near the Carolina Road. Joseph Farrow died in 1781. Thomas’s mother Elizabeth was thus a widow at age forty with seven children aged from about one to seventeen. Thomas was then about three or four years old, his oldest brother William was about thirteen or fourteen, Thornton about eight, Joseph M. about six, and the older sisters were teenagers.

To Kentucky, About 1784

The Kentucky lands that the children had now jointly inherited, Joseph Farrow’s “preemption”, had been staked out for him by his brother-in-law Richard Masterson in one or more earlier trips dating from about 1776.(1) Joseph’s younger brother Thornton, after whom he had named one of his sons, had also been among the several parties of Prince William and Loudoun County, Virginia neighbors staking out claims in Kentucky, traveling down the Ohio from Fort Pitt in canoes and landing in or near what later became Maysville. There are no documents to illuminate the plight or help us appreciate the thought processes of the widow Elizabeth, who now faced the prospect of taking her family on the same journey so her children could claim their inheritance.

The Wilderness Road had been famously blazed by Daniel Boone and his party in 1776, but the Cumberland Gap gateway was a long trip south of the Leesburg area and it was not yet accessible to wagons. Ft. Pitt and the Ohio River were roughly half that distance northward over routes that Richard Masterson had traveled before, so it’s a good guess that the widow Elizabeth and her family floated down the Ohio from Ft. Pitt with her younger brother Richard an important member of the party, if not its leader. If they actually made the trip in May 1784 as one family historian reported,(2) they were among the early families who came down the river that year in keel boats or the first of the larger flat boats.(3) Indian attacks were a constant possibility along the river in the 1780’s and ‘90’s, and remained a threat until well after the War of 1812. By 3 January 1789 she was living at Masterson’s Station, presumably with Thomas and most of his siblings, about four miles from what was soon to become Lexington.(4)

Land Claim Troubles

The haphazardly recorded tree blazed “tomahawk claims” that had been marked off by the first parties to enter backwoods Kentucky left land titles in chaos, and Joseph Farrow’s heirs found their 2000 acre presumed inheritance under constant assault by rival claimants. In one case dating from 1815, for example, a Jeremiah Strode sues to "eject" a long list of defendants, who claim various parts of 7000 acres identified as the Edwards tract, said to date from 1785, on the waters of Fleming Creek and the North fork of Licking River.(5) Thomas Farrow and several relatives were among 29 defendants listed on the cover sheet or in the body of the complaint. The case was in the courts at least through 1823 and resulted in the eviction of some of the defendants. Other portions of the Edwards tract held under the Farrows’ claims were later sold resulting in further suits. Thomas eventually found himself holding precariously onto just eighty five acres on the boundary of Fleming and Mason Counties on the south side of the North Fork of the Licking River at the mouth of Farrow's Creek.

1813: Battle of Thames River

As Thomas was entering his mid-thirties his land title troubles were complicated by the War of 1812. In the East it was motivated by other concerns, but in Kentucky and the Old Northwest Territory it was mostly about Indians and Indian lands. After the first year of fighting Kentucky Gov. Shelby called for additional volunteers, and Thomas was among several Farrow relatives from Fleming and nearby counties who signed up. They were mustered in at Newport across the river from Cincinnati in late August 1813. Thomas was a private in Bott’s Company of Donaldson’s (Second) Regiment.-(6) Thomas’ older brother William was a major in the same regiment. The mounted Kentucky Volunteers headed north and were a part of the action at the Battle of the Thames River (in Ontario) on October 5, 1813 in which the American forces were opposed by British regulars and 1200 Indians under Tecumseh, the famous Shawnee Indian warrior who sought to rally Native American tribes to resist settlement of Indian territories.. Tecumseh was killed in this action and there were casualties among the volunteers.(7) The volunteers were back in Kentucky and mustered out early in November.

An IOU Culture

Unhappily, Thomas’ troubles were not confined to impossibly complicated land title cases. As the youngest son in a large fatherless family he had started life at a significant disadvantage and signed his first IOU in his mid-twenties. He and older brother Thornton had borrowed fifty dollars late in September 1806 and were sued for nonpayment next year. Thornton died intestate in 1807 and Thomas with Thornton’s widow Henrietta administered his estate. Thomas was close to his brother’s widow both as a friend and neighbor. He cosigned a marriage bond for the wedding of Henreta’s (sic) daughter Mary K. (Polly) Farrow (who was sixteen) and Thomas Davenport dated 23 July 1814, and he also witnessed Henreta’s (sic) written permission.(8)

In their cash strapped society, Thomas was certainly not the only one using IOUs. In their role as co-administrators of Thornton’s estate, Thomas and Henrietta held notes from at least three parties indebted to Thornton and they were plaintiffs in as many court cases to collect the debts and recover costs. The results of their suites were not discovered. They were co-defendants in litigation brought by Thornton and Henrietta’s son Joseph T. Farrow, who charged in a long bill of particulars that Thomas was really the active administrator and that he misappropriated portions of the estate for his own use, loaning sums out to others to earn interest.(9) In their IOU culture it was probably a common practice.

Nephew's Notes

On 21 July 1813, about a month before he was mustered in to the mounted volunteers, he had borrowed $64.70 from his nephew James O’Cull. His note was co-signed by another nephew Daniel Harrah and witnessed by his mother. James O’Cull may have been loaning part of his wards’ inheritance, otherwise why the curiously specific sum, $64.70. In any event, eleven years later in January 1824 the note was still unpaid and James O’Cull finally filled suite.(10)

Summoned

In 1819 Thomas bought merchandise on a personal note for $62.77 for which he was sued. A summons was issued followed by a judgment against Thomas Farrow who was "solemnly called but came not."(11) A bail bond was required and may have been forfeited. He had earlier been assigned the duty of “Overseer of the publick highway in (Fleming) County which leads from the Mason County line to the forks of the road by the Widow Farrows …” which presumably passed near his home. A county Grand Jury found that he had not kept it in good repair. It was a common complaint and usually meant that the path had not been cleared of underbrush. He was served with a summons on 4 August 1823 and fined five dollars and costs.12)

As the frontier settlement communities emerged from the backwoods they became county court centered societies. County residents gathered during court days to conduct business, buy supplies or just socialize. Litigation at the county court was very much the order of the day, and court records dominate available documentation. Personal indebtedness was a common fact of life in Colonial Virginia and especially so among struggling frontier farmers. That said, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Thomas was careless about repaying his notes. The personal note was the 19th century equivalent of credit cards, and Thomas regularly signed them, apparently for survival cash.

Bonds for a Buddy

But Thomas was also quick to help friends. His troubles did not keep him from coming to the assistance of friend Dempsey Glascock, who was into a bit of a tiff with George McKinney, who on 24 January 1824 charged that Dempsey Glascock, laborer, "...will beat or do him some bodily harm..." and therefore "...prayed surety of the peace against him...", so the 27th Thomas appeared with Dempsey Glascock and gave bond for $100 each for Glascock's appearance and keeping the peace. Fortunately, Glascock showed up for his day in court and Thomas did not have to fork over the $200, which he certainly did not have.(13)

In Court

In August 1829 Thomas was sued by the Bank of the Commonwealth who held his promissory note for $60.00. The note was dated 17 January 1828 with a schedule of costs on the reverse side totaling $6.97. Older brother Will had co-signed and was served with a summons on August 27 but the sheriff couldn’t find Thomas. Fleming County Circuit Court Order Book K, p332, the September Term 1829, 4th Day, Thursday morning September 10th 1829, records, "This day came the plaintiffs by their attorney and the defendant Thomas Farrow confesses Judgment for the amount specified and the defendants William Farrow and Aaron McIntire (another co-signer) not appearing..., the court finds for plnt with costs.”

There were still other debts, lawsuits and court summons, and possibly some that we did not have time to investigate during our visit to Flemingsburg in 1992 when we were shown bundles of loose Farrow documents.

Family

A record of Thomas’ marriage has not been located but his wife is named Nancy in later deeds, and census data on the ages of the male children in their household suggest that they were married before or very early in 1800. Joseph W. Farrow who appears in Fleming County, KY and Boone County, IN records as well as in census data is clearly their oldest son, born in 1800. A second son born about 1818 and also named Thomas(II), can be inferred from census data with confidence. Thomas and Nancy almost certainly had daughters but their identification is difficult. The 1820 Fleming County, KY census lists male children in age brackets consistent with Joseph W. and Thomas(II), plus 3 females under 10 and one 10 to 16. In the 1830 census Joseph W. and his wife lived nearby. The one male in the 10-15 bracket would be consistent with Thomas(II), and there was one female in the 10-15 and two in the 15-20 bracket. There was one male slave 24-36 listed. Joseph W. Farrow appeared as head of household on the same census form in the second house below, and Wm Farrow was listed in the fourth house below Thomas.

Indiana Homesteader

Meanwhile, Thomas and his son had been making plans to leave Kentucky. Settlement opportunities were opening up to the north and although Thomas was fifty years old, he was itching to put a state line and as many miles as possible between him, the sheriff and his debtors. Indiana became a state in 1816 and, after a series of treaties with resident Indian tribes in the Old Northwest Territory, Congress in 1820 passed legislation providing for the sale of public lands at land offices located first at Vincennes, then in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Thomas was in Fleming County KY in February 1831 when he was served with a summons but by May he was registering a land claim in Boone County Indiana. Some of the lost Boone County land records are reconstructed in a volume labeled “Deeds Here to Fore Recorded Sept. 1852 - Feb.1856.” On 31 May 1831 he recorded his claim for 240 acres of section 35 in Jackson Township. Later that year the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued two certificates dated 2 November 1831 and signed by President Andrew Jackson; one for the southwest quarter (160 acres) and another for the east one half of the northwest quarter (80 acres).(14) Initially the land sold for $1.25 per acre and there were various provisions for credit sales. It is highly unlikely that Thomas could have found a way to put together $300 so he probably bought it with some form of credit. He may have traveled to Boone County alone but more likely with one or both sons Joseph and Thomas (Jr.). If he followed a frequent scenario he would have cleared an acre or two, put up some kind of shelter, planted a crop and perhaps harvested it before returning to Kentucky to dispose of his farm there and to collect his family.

Whether he stayed in Boone County for eighteen months or made more than one trip, Thomas was back in Fleming County in October of 1832 to sell the farm to older brother Will. The deed describes the 85 acre tract located on the border of Fleming and Mason Counties, and it specifies that Thomas and Nancy sell only THEIR title to the property, that is, they are, “not to be no way liable or accountable ... should (the land) or any part thereof be taken by a prior or better claim". Considering the state of Fleming County land titles, the disclaimer was probably pretty standard language in contemporary deeds of sale.(15) The original deed was no longer available when we copied it in 1992, but the clerk’s record showed that Nancy had signed with her mark.

Tom and Nancy’s Children

It has not been possible to document all of Tom and Nancy’s children with confidence. When they left Kentucky for good and moved to Boone County, Indiana they clearly had sons Joseph and Thomas (Jr.) with them, but just how many other children remains a puzzle. Census data indicate that there were several daughters and possibly one or more additional sons, but they remain undocumented. Their established children are:

JOSEPH W.FARROW, b.1800 KY; d. Aft. 1860

THOMAS (Jr.) FARROW, b. 1818, Fleming, KY, d. September 18, 1855

Although Joseph is the oldest documented surviving son, there may have been two additional sons. One of the two 10-16 year old males appearing in the 1810 census would have been in his twenties by 1820 and could have married and left home. (The other was Joseph W.) The 10-16 year old male enumerated in 1820 (one of the 2m<10 in 1810) would have been marriageable before 1830. The possibility that one or both these unknown males were “farm hands” cannot be ruled out.

Boone County Resident

There is no record of when Thomas lost or disposed of the 240 acres in Section 35, Jackson Township, in Boone County but he probably did not have it very long. Section 35 is two to three miles south of the present town of Advance, which was not founded until 1872 when a railroad line was surveyed through the site.(16) Thomas’ descendants lived in or near Jackson Township for the next two or three generations. There was no family memory of family members owning any part of these two parcels. Some of the land in this general area required draining to make it productive, but it is now in the midst of prime Indiana farmland.

Although Boone County was organized in 1830, the records of its Circuit Court do not begin until 1832.(17) Thomas Farrow makes his appearance almost immediately when he is appointed a member of the Grand Jury for the April and October (1833) terms, and for the next year as well. It is interesting that Thomas, who left Kentucky trailing unpaid debts, was promptly appointed to a grand jury in his new Boone County home. In April 1834 they reported on their investigation of the new county jail. They found it “destitute of prisoners”, and after the iron work was contracted for it would be a safe place for their confinement. They thought the jail rooms “too small for comfort, and the jail not sufficiently clean to remain healthy and free from infection.” Thomas was among those who signed a minority report that the jail was inconvenient as to size and uncomfortable in inclement season. Was he worried about the possibility that he might have to spend time there?

Debt Troubles Again

In a few more years Thomas was back in familiar territory; in debt and being sued by a determined creditor. In November 1837, before a Justice of the Peace, he acknowledged that he owed William A. Sangster $95.00 plus interest and costs. When he had not paid in six months the constable of Jackson Township was ordered to size property, which was sold for $39.49 ¾c. Sangster asked for additional seizures, but the constable reported, “no property found in my County or Township whereon to levy.” In August the constable reported that Thomas had been arrested and taken into custody, but that he had escaped! A series of additional confiscations netted only $22.83 ¾c, which was handed over to Sangster. On April 10, 1839 after Thomas had failed to appear in response to several summons, the court ordered the “ Pltf to have execution against lands & tenements, goods & chattels of deft.”. On the next day, April 11, the order book lists a separately titled action against Thomas and his son Joseph:

WILLIAM McCLEAN VS THOMAS FARROW & JOSEPH FARROW – In chy? Pltf. by FLETCHER & BUTLER attys. Defts. Failed to appear and made default. Judgment entered in favor of Pltf. for $452.20, amount to be paid in 15 days or sold in due course.

There is no way to determine if McClean’s cause of action is related to William Sangster’s suit, or if it is a completely different and unrelated case. The amount is fairly substantial and the senior partner of the plaintiff’s law firm is Calvin Fletcher, a very successful Indianapolis attorney whose voluminous diary is a useful primary source for the local history of the area.(18) Fletcher visited Lebanon and other circuit courts on a regular basis, but the case is not mentioned in his diary. There are no further mentions of Thomas or Joseph Farrow in the Boone County Circuit Court order book, which runs to 8 April 1840, and we are left in the dark as to what may have happened to Thomas and his son as a result of the judgment. Debt collection was a significant part of the business of Fletcher’s firm and sales of defaulted lands are sometimes mentioned in passing, but it is not at all clear that Thomas had any real estate left to sell. At that point, Thomas (Sr.) would have been close to 60 years old, son Joseph about 40 and younger son Thomas (Jr.) about 22 and soon to be married.

The next and last available record of Thomas is the 1840 census which shows him and his wife living alone in Scott Township in south central Montgomery County, hopefully out of reach of the sheriff in Boone county.. Their general location in Scott Township would have been several miles to the west of the properties he homesteaded earlier in Jackson Township in adjoining Boone County. No Farrows are listed in Montgomery County in the 1850 Census and Thomas’ grave has not been located.

So what are we to make of Thomas? Was he just another bungling ne’er-do-well, or a poor struggling farmer never able to rise above the debts he was forced to incur to provide for his family. The surviving paper record is distorted – papered almost exclusively with bad debts. No one writes court documented IOU’s for good deeds. The bungling and bad debts that men incur live after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. We have yet to find Thomas’s.

Sources

(1)History of Maysville and Mason County Kentucky. G. Glenn Cliff, p34.

(2)Date mentioned in Farrow family notes collected by Martha Elizabeth (Gaebke) Breslin (1889-1970), of Maysville, KY.

(3) Cliff, p44ff.

(4)Notice in the Kentucky Gazette regarding slaves to be hired out. KY Gaz. p.13. Vol. II, Number XIX. Karen Mauer Green, The Kentucky gazette: genealogical and historical abstracts. Frontier Press, 1983.

(5)Fleming co KY C.C. Case #3589. Copies of selected documents from this large file were supplied by Fleming County Archivist Mrs. Caren Prater.

(6)Adjutant Generals Office of Kentucky, Report of Kentucky Soldiers of 1812.

(7)Filson Club Publications, No. 18, p216, Battle of the Thames.

(8)I am indebted to Marilynn Dickerson for copies of these materials.

(9) Fleming County Court File No. 5024. The cover sheet is labeled: "Farrow, J. T. vs Farrow, Thos. // Bill // Filed 8th May 1828.” During RPF’s visit on 23 April 1992, Fleming County Archivist Caren Prater pointed out a large number of court cases involving various Farrows. The documents are in bundles bearing file numbers. We picked one from the indexes that carried Thomas Farrow's name.

(10)James O'Cull agst Thomas Farrow and Danial Harrah, Fleming co KY C.C. Case 3631.

(11)John Langhorne & William Payne vs Thomas Farrow, Case # 3232 June Term 1821, Fleming Co. KY C.C.

(12)Commonwealth (of KY) agst Thomas Farrow, Fleming co KY Circuit Court Case No. 3612, Sept 1823.

(13)Commonwealth against Dempsey Glascock & Thomas Farrow. Fleming co C.C. Case 3643.

(14) The descriptions and copies of the certificates can be downloaded from the Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office web site: http://www.glorecords.blm.gov.

(15) County Deed Book R p300-302.

(16) Boone County Historical Society (as author), History of Boone County, 1984. p110.

(17)Civil Order Book I, Boone Circuit Court, Boone County, Indiana. Compiled by Marilyn Wall

(18) The Diary of Calvin Fletcher Vol. I-IX, Indiana Historical Society 1972-1983, Gayle Thornbrough ed. Fletcher’s law partner for eleven years was Ovid Butler whose later association for many years with Northwestern Christian University in Indianapolis led to its present name, Butler University.

Sources

• WikiTree profile Farrow-172 created through the import of Call-Komar Family Tree.ged on Sep 6, 2012 by Todd Call. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Todd and others.