The six hundred and thirty-second note in a series about the Germanna Colonies Henry Thomas is said to have been the oldest son of Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas himself was born in the neighborhood of 1720. Before he was seven years old, he owned one-half of a good tract of land in Virginia. Therefore, with a livelihood guaranteed and perhaps a home already built on his land, he probably did not wait long to be married. It would be reasonable to assume that he was married by the time he was twenty. Therefore, Henry might have been born about 1740. The Thomas family probably moved to the Ten Mile Creek area in the latter part of the 1760's, perhaps when Henry was about 27. About ten years later he was about 37. His proposed brothers, Michael and Samuel, could readily have been adults also. Adam Smith, the first cousin of the Thomas men, is thought to have been born about 1736, so slightly older than Henry. Adam had two brothers, Zacharias and John, who like Adam, have no record in Virginia after 1777. They are to be found in Kentucky. (If memory serves me correctly, Zacharias claimed land on the basis of having grown a crop of corn before 1776.) Zacharias married, for the first time, Anne Elizabeth Fishback, who was a granddaughter of two Germanna pioneers. One of these was Jacob Holtzclaw, a family that had some connections to the Thomases. The three Smith brothers, had four sisters. One sister, Mary, married Adam Barlow whose name is to be found in Kentucky at an early date. Of the other sisters, Susanna married John Berry, Jr. and she is to be found in Virginia for a long time thereafter. Anna Magdalena, another Smith sister, married John George Crisler and they remained in Virginia. The other daughter, Catherine, had a most uncertain future as her lifestyle was very unconventional. There were more cousins from Culpeper County in Virginia who were early settlers of Kentucky. In the last note, a claim was made that the first permanent settlement in Kentucky was made by people who had come from the Ten Mile Creek area of Pennsylvania. This region was settled by people who came overland from eastern Pennsylvania (using Forbe's Road) and from northern Virginia (using Braddock's Road). The French and Indian War had required these roads and as a consequence many people became acquainted with this new territory. But no matter where the frontier is, someone will always go over the next hill to see what is there. As the news filtered back to Ten Mile Creek, more people became curious. It was fairly easy to get there as one only had to put some in the water that would float and the rivers would carry you there. It was also very dangerous. The other route to Kentucky was from southwest Virginia through the Cumberland gap. This was an overland route and, if one had wagons and beasts of burden, it was a more natural route, especially from southern Virginia and the Carolinas. Our Germanna citizens were well represented in the settlement of Kentucky. The Germanna people were always pioneers. The First Colony was, for a while, the westernmost point of English civilization in the Americas. Then for a while, the Second Colony was the westernmost point of civilization. There were never afraid of taking a position on the frontier. John Blankenbaker, PO Box 120, Chadds Ford, PA 19317 Beyond Germanna, A Newsletter/Journal of Germanna Information http://www.germanna.com/ http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/johnsgermnotes/germhis1.html http://www.inficad.com/~genelea http://www.pretext.com/mar98/shorts/short3.htm Sue