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Thomas was born in 1795. He passed away in 1856.
He moved to Texas from Tennessee in 1818, coming "by boat from Memphis, Tenn., and landed at the mouth of Brazos River in Texas. He lived for a year or two on Cedar Lake in Brazoria County until [he] had his headright located, which was one league and labor [4,605 acres]. He located it on the Colorado River near the place Bay City is now built."[1] In 1822 he built in the first ferry on the river which was known as Cayce's Ferry.[2]
In 1835-36 he served as in Captain Thomas Stewart's Matagorda Volunteers[3] which fought at the Siege of Béxar.[4] Soon after Thomas was mustered out of the army, "there was a small army post, garrisoned by some thirty or forty men stationed at Cayce’s Ferry […] known as the First Colorado Station. […] This army post was in existence from the latter part of November, 1836, until about June of 1837, when the capital was moved from Columbia to Houston."[2] In 1938 Thomas Dodson Cayce became a charter member of the Matagorda Masonic Lodge.[5]
On January 22, 1839, George Elliott purchased the the league and labor from Thomas Cayce; and the ferry became known as Elliot's Ferry.[2] In exchange, Thomas got. one third of a league in Brazoria County five miles from West Columbia, and where he established "a good farm."[1]
In March of the next year, his oldest son, Washington, was killed in San Antonio by a band of Penateka Comanche Indians. And then, after the invasion and retreat by the Mexican army in 1842, Thomas Cayce "found he had to make a new start, and he chose a less exposed sitationon a ridge between Caney and Cedar Lake, near the coast, and about forty miles from Columbia. On this newly chosen spot he opened a cotton plantation and established his family residence. [6]
We have a description of Thomas Cayce from August 1843 by a Dr. Copes:
Cayce passed away on his farm in the fall of 1856.
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