Person

Samuel Beal Thomas (Hardin County, KY, U.S. mail contractor, politician, and businessman)

b. 1811-08-04 d. 1874-09-03

Hardin County, Kentucky, U.S. mail contractor, businessman, and politician. Frederick County, Maryland, native. Son of Samuel Thomas. Married to Zorayda Young Thomas on September 19, 1833. Father of Howard Thomas, Wallace Thomas, Mary E. Thomas, Ellen M. Thomas, and Ann Thomas. Relocated to West Point, Hardin County, Kentucky, in 1828. Mail clerk in the office of Edward P. Johnson. Road agent in the office of Edward P. Johnson. Purchased Johnson's mail line in 1830. Part-owner of Hough, Carter, & Thomas Stage Coach Line in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. Founding director and financier of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. Promoter and first president of the Elizabethtown and Paducah Railroad. Owned thirty-nine enslaved persons in 1850. Owned fifty-six enslaved persons in 1860. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky for Hardin County from 1863 to 1865. Charter member of Barker Masonic Lodge at West Point, Kentucky.

Details

Sex
Male
Race
White

Bibliography

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, Upper or Northern District, p. 310A-310B.
Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, District No. 1, p. 8.
Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, 3rd District, p. 90.
Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, 3rd District, p. 7-8.
Ninth Manuscript Census of the United States (1870), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Hardin County, Elizabethtown, p. 329A.
The Biographical Encyclopædia of Kentucky of the Dead and Living Men of the Nineteenth Century, vol. 1 (Cincinnati: J. M. Armstrong & Company, 1878), 379-380.
"Historic Resources of Hardin County. Samuel B. Thomas House," National Park Service, 26 Aug 1988, ( https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset?assetID=eeec3d57-a6b2-43fb-99be-ee264421b618) (accessed August 3, 2017).
Daniel Elmo McClure, Jr., Two Centuries in Elizabethtown and Hardin County, Kentucky, 1776-1976, Elizabethtown, Hardin County historical Society, 1979, 288-89.

Citation

Thomas, Samuel Beal. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32198685 (February 13, 2026).

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