- WALTER D. THOMAS, A.M., professor of Greek at Milton College,
is a native of New Jersey,
- born in Shiloh, Cumberland County, July 1, 1855, a son of
Amos W. and Abigail S. (AYERS) THOMAS, both also natives of New
Jersey. James B. THOMAS, his paternal grandfather, was a native
of Pennsylvania, and of Welsh ancestry. Clayton AYERS, his maternal
grandfather, was a native of New Jersey, of English extraction,
and a farmer by occupation. He lived to the age of about eighty.
- Our subject was one of seven children, five sons and two
daughters, of whom five survive: Albert
- Jones, of Ely, Minn.; Prof. Walter Davis, our subject; Lewis
Titsworth, of St. Paul, Minn.; Nettie, of Milton; and Edward
Ayers, of Shiloh, N.J. The father was for many years a farmer
of Shiloh, N.J., and in 1898 came to Milton, where he died in
September, 1900, at the age of seventy-eight. The mother died
at Shiloh, N.J., in August, 1893, aged sixty-eight years. Both
were members of the Seventh-day Baptist Church.
- Prof. Walter David THOMAS was reared on the farm in Shiloh,
and there attended the district
- schools, and later Union Academy, at Shiloh. In 1879 he
entered Milton College as a student, graduating in 1884. He
was immediately afterward elected an instructor of the College,
where he remained ever since, now filling the chair of the Greek
Language.
- On Dec. 4, 1889, Prof. THOMAS married Miss Celia Belle OVIATT,
daughter of Dr. William
- Henry and Theresa Fidelia (COLLINS) OVIATT. Dr OVIATT was
a native of McKean County, Penn., son of William Sweet OVIATT,
a native of New York, a farmer and justice of the peace, who
reared a large family, and died at the age of nearly eighty years.
Dr. OVIATT married the daughter of Dr. John COLLINS, a physician,
who was a native of New York State. Dr. OVIATT died at Milton
Junction in 1899, aged fifty-nine years. Of his six children,
two sons and four daughters, three are now living: Celia Belle,
wife of our subject; Kittie, wife of Frank GESLER, of Bangor,
Wis.; and William C. of Milton Junction.
- Prof. and Mrs. THOMAS are members of the Seventh-day Baptist
Church, of which he is
- serving as clerk. In politics he is a Prohibitionist. His
attractive home at Milton he built in 1888.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin"
(c) 1901, pp. 245-246.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
|