Thomas Jonathan Belcher

Thomas Jonathan Belcher, son of Edward H. Belcher and Lydia Malinda Mullis, was born in Rusk County, Texas on November 27, 1844.  The Belcher families of John Belcher, his wife Nancy Hardin and their children, as well as their son Edward H. Belcher and his wife, migrated from Troup County, Georgia between 1840 and 1843, and received 4th headright land grants in the Republic of Texas during the last year prior to statehood.  In 1858 Edward H. Belcher married his third wife Edna Harper.  Family life may have been stressful since Edward H. brought four children from his previous two marriages.  In 1860, at age 15, Thomas Jonathan having moved out of his father’s home, was living with and working as a farm laborer for his uncle John Washington Belcher in Wood County, Texas.  John enlisted in Company B, 10th Texas Cavalry Regiment, the “Wood County Rebels” on April 20, 1862.  The excitement of the time was infectious and soon young Thomas Jonathan and his best friend William Calvery, joined up as well.

Thomas Jonathan enlisted at the age of 17, six months before his 18th birthday, and served a total of two months and five days.  He was enlisted in Quitman, Wood County, Texas by B. S. Watts on May 10, 1862 to serve a three-year enlistment, and traveled 12 miles to Camp Hubbard, where he trained.  He served his time in Company H, 22nd Texas Infantry Regiment.  J. J. Carter, Commander, Company H discharged him for reason of a certificate of disability, on July 14, 1862.  On October 20, 1862 he was paid $36.44 for his time in service, travel pay and clothing allowance.

After returning home he remained a farm laborer working for his aunt Martha Jane Keaton Belcher (John Washington Belcher’s wife) while John was away serving in the war, and after John’s death.  Thomas Jonathan was a charter member of the New Hope Baptist Church near Mineola, Wood County in 1864.  In 1865 he moved to Erath County and became a schoolteacher in a one-room log cabin schoolhouse near Rock Falls, Texas.  He married Louisa Jane Robinson in 1866, who was the granddaughter of Reverend William “Choctaw Bill” Robinson, who became a famous circuit riding Baptist preacher of frontier Texas. 

In 1870 he became one of the first four precinct Justices of the Peace of Erath County, an office which he successfully held until 1889.  During that time he acquired land and became a rancher and farmer, served as a Postmaster, and studied the law.  In 1884 he was examined by his peers and passed the bar exam for practicing law in Texas.  He became an attorney and practiced the law from that point until his death in 1904. 

In 1883, Louisa Jane died following a difficult childbirth.  She had mothered 10 children of which seven survived to adulthood.  In 1884 Thomas Jonathan married his second wife Nancy Caroline Gifford, who gave birth to two children.  She died in 1889.  Later that year he married her younger half sister, Elizabeth “Eliza” Harriet Gifford.  He had known the Gifford family from Wood County, and as they settled in Hood County, he renewed the acquaintance not long after his arrival nearby in Erath County.  In 1890 the Belchers moved to Stonewall County, Texas and Thomas Jonathan was elected the first County Attorney, a position he held until 1896.  He saw his oldest two daughters married in Stonewall County, one to the County Judge and the other to a prominent rancher. 

Thomas Jonathan moved his family south to Kenedy, Karnes County, where he went into private practice as an attorney in 1896.  He likely made the decision to move to a warmer climate due to his wife’s problems with tuberculosis.  Eliza gave him four more children that all lived to adulthood.  Thomas Jonathan died in Kenedy on October 2, 1904 from a heart attack.  Eliza died in 1908 of tuberculosis, orphaning their youngest two children.  Thomas Jonathan had been an active member of the Masons since 1866, having been a charter member of a new lodge in 1883, and had served as the Secretary for many years in the five different lodges of his affiliation.  Because of his membership, the Masons took his last two children to the Masonic Home and School of Texas in Fort Worth, and raised and schooled them until they reached adulthood.