In celebration of the 250th Anniversary of our country, local members of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution will highlight the patriots buried in Southeast Missouri.
Thomas English was born in Virginia on October 13, 1751. After the death of his father in1769, his mother remarried, and at 15 years of age, he moved to live with his sister in Macon, Georgia. Thomas married Jane Wicker in 1774 in Georgia.
There are a number of documents for a Thomas English with service during the Revolutionary War. The one service that is documented and accepted by the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution is the pension record of William Wicker that states in September of 1781 his brother-in-law, Thomas English, was wounded at the Battle of Eutaw Springs, South Carolina.
Thomas and Jane went on to settle in the area of Warthen, Washington County, Georgia, and in 1804 they moved to Cape Girardeau County with six sons and seven daughters. The English family lived in the Ramsay Settlement with their children: Thomas married Elizabeth Howard; William married Nancy Hunter; Charity Jane married Willaim Matthews; Robert married Mary Renfroe; Simeon married Anna Erina McFerron; Hannah Louise married Edward Joyce; Jane (Jennie) married Zedekiah Howard; Talitha Cumy married John Evans; Joseph married Columbia Bell McFerron; Elizabeth married David Renfroe; Elizabeth Louisa married Benjamin Wolf and Hiram Kennison; and Margaret (Patsey) Martha married George Camster.
Thomas and his wife were founding members of Old Bethel Baptist Church in Jackson, Missouri. A plaque with more information on the founding of the church is located at the church site—2878 Old Bethel Lane in Jackson, Missouri.
Thomas died May 16, 1829, and is buried along with his wife Jane who died April 5, 1842, on the family farm. The English cemetery is on private property near Bloomfield Road, and Thomas’ grave was marked with a new headstone by the Sons of the American Revolution.
For more information on Thomas English, check out the sources below.
Sources:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/37774794/thomas-english
Original data: Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files (NARA microfilm publication M804, 2,670 rolls). Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Are You English? Are You Kin John and Sinai (Ballew) English
By Patricia (Shively) Shipman Elmore, a book at The State Historical Society of Missouri
https://shsmo.org/
https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/tree/200554715/family
Old Bethel: The First Baptist Church in Missouri https://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/missouri.old.bethel.html