Haywood B. Thomas, a farmer by occupation, was born in Carroll County, September 10, 1832, and is of a family of five sons and eight daughters, born to Luke and Elizabeth (Burradelle) Thomas, himself and four sisters being the surviving members of the family. Both parents were born in Burke County, N.C., and moved to Trigg County, Ky., when young, and were married there; moved to Carroll County, Tenn., in 1825, and remained there farming until his father’s death in 1862. His father was an elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church for many years. His mother remained in the county until her death in 1870.
Our subject, Haywood B. Thomas, attended Bethel College a few terms after his majority, then taught school one year in Carroll County, after which he was engaged in the marble trade until 1858, in the interest of a firm in Hickman, Ky. He was then employed in the construction of the Northwestern Railroad until 1862, when he enlisted in the Fifth Tennessee Confederate Infantry, remaining a year, and was then transferred to the Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry as first lieutenant, and held this position until Capt. Falkner’s death at Dresden, when he returned home, and remained until he married, November 7, 1867, Miss Ann Roach, the issue of this union being four sons and five daughters, all living but one son. After the war, he purchased a farm in Carroll County, which he still owns, but in June, 1885, he moved to McKenzie. On his farm, which contains 250 acres, are Indian mounds, and a number of fine springs of freestone water. Mr. Thomas is an extensive cotton grower, paying but little attention to the cultivation of the cereals. He and family are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, of which he is an elder. He is also a member of the board of aldermen of McKenzie and board of trustees of Bethel College, and vice-president of the State Agricultural Wheel, and president of the Carroll County Agricultural Wheel.
Transcribed by David Donahue
Source: History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Carroll, Henry and Benton Counties, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Original Observations, Reminiscences, Etc., Etc. Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1978.