Foreword

This attempt to trace the ancestry of the Thomas and Bridges families has been put together after more than four years of frequently interesting, sometimes fascinating and often frustrating research. During that time I have pored over many pages of court records, most of them painstakingly hand written on paper now yellowed with age, as well as checked many volumes of historical and genealogical references in libraries and state archives in several parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia. I have also corresponded with numerous relatives, near relatives and kinfolk I previously didn’t know I had. I also have corresponded with many complete but sympathetic strangers from various parts of the United States.

More specifically, the search for information about our ancestors led me to historic Jamestown, Virginia, where John Thomas, the emigrant who started it all, arrived to become the first Thomas in America. It also led me to nearby Williamsburg, in York County, where, on the shore by the murky waters of Queens Creek, that same ancestor, after a storm interrupted trip across the Atlantic, settled and raised his family. While in Virginia, I also criss-crossed Nansemond County, early-day “Thomas Country” where John Thomas’s descendants settled, and historic Isle of Wight County where Joseph, our Bridger emigrant ancestor, lived and died. Also in Virginia, near Smithfield, I reverently inspected St. Luke’s, the “Old Brick Church,” said to have been built under supervision of a member of the Bridger family, where many Bridger descendants worshipped, and where, in front of the chancel, is buried the remains of Joseph Bridger.

In North Carolina, I walked along sandy trails in Chowan County where Joseph Thomas lived for a time during his migration from Nansemond County, Virginia, to Bertie County, North Carolina, where he lived and died. In the latter county, I roamed along both sides of the brackish waters of the Cashie River where, with a certain feeling of awe, I walked where our Thomas ancestors had walked over a century and a half ago. In this area, too, lived the Barnes and Standley families to whom we also have ancestral roots. Farther north I walked along the Meherrin River where once lived William Bridger. It was he who, following a precident set by his father, Joseph Bridger, Jr., changed the spelling of the family name to Bridgers, beginning a progression that in time became Bridges, the way it is spelled in Kentucky today.

Descendants of William Bridgers moved eventually, to a site on Fishing Creek in Edgecombe County, and later, to Tyancoca Swamp in the same county, where lived our Kentucky ancestor, Drury Bridgers, and his father William. This area, called simply Cokey Swamp today, is only a few miles from the present day city of Rocky Mount. There too lived the Cohoon (later spelled Calhoun) and Flowers families, also a branch of our ancestral chart. Thanks to a Bridgers descendant who also traces his ancestry back to Joseph Bridger, I was able to walk where Drury and his family walked in the late 1700’s before they left North Carolina for Kentucky.

Then, to make it complete, I traveled over practically every mile of the way from Cashie River, Fishing Creek and Cokey Swamp Country in North Carolina, to Donaldson and Beechy Fork creeks in Kentucky, in order to look, marvel and wonder how James Thomas and Drury Bridges and their families ever made it to Kentucky at all.

In my research I found that the trails of our Thomas and Bridges lines crossed many times in Virginia and North Carolina. Both families were active in the affairs of the Old Brick Church near Smithfield, and graves of Thomas and Bridger members can be found in the adjacent cemetery. William Bridgers and Joseph Thomas lived not very far apart in Bertie County, but amazingly enough, I found no indication that the two ever knew each other.

John Thomas, emigrant, came to Virginia in 1610; Joseph Bridger came more than 40 years later. The Thomas line originated in Wales; the Bridger line came from England. The ancestry of both families reaches back into the dim recesses of British history, traced with reasonable accuracy beyond the mid 1500’s.

There are many questions yet to be answered about the life and times of the Thomas and Bridges families prior to their arrival in Kentucky. Research is complicated by the fact that other Thomas lines soon followed ours to America. One came to Plymouth, Massachusetts in the 1620’s, and descendants scattered throughout New England. Others came to Virginia and the Carolinas. A Bridges line settled in Virginia several years before Joseph Bridger came, and those descendants also migrated to North Carolina.

It is only fitting at this point to give credit to those who helped and otherwise encouraged me in the compilation of this material. Without their substantial assistance, it would not be nearly as complete.

My thanks go especially to Captain Henry C. Bridgers, Jr., and to Miss Mary Hamilton, for taking time to check much of this manuscript, as well as for supplying many important bits of information; Mrs. Adam Koch; Mrs. Herbert Sumner, Mrs. John Hughes, Mrs. John Alex Thomas, Mrs. Eugene Sumner, Mrs. Rumsey Alexander, Olen Ray Thomas, Thomas Jones, H. M. Thomas, Robert M. Thomas, Allison W. Thomas, all Thomas and/or Bridges descendants of varying degrees; my sister, Mrs. Ruby T. Hinson, upon whose memory, family picture collection and scrapbook I have heavily relied; John S. Thomas, grandson of Perry Thomas, whose family records and relics are a veritable Thomas museum; Hugh Johnston, genealogist and Thomas family descendant; Joseph Inman, genealogist and president, The Jamestowne Society; Mrs. M. B. Gilliam, attorney and authority on land titles; and Miss Evelyn Dale, assistant curator, The Filson Club, who located the first reference book to start me on the right track.

For technical assistance in production of this book, I wish to thank Don E. MacGregor, William C. Tayse, C. Norman Beasley, William R. Heffren and M. J. RoBards, all of Louisville.

Most of all, I want to thank my wife, Thelma, for her patience, understanding and encouragement during the past four years.

—Edison H. Thomas Louisville, Ky.