This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: FINCH, SCRUGGS Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/IhB.2ACI/339 Message Board Post: Obituary of Thomas Finch (1796-1871) The Home Journal, Winchester, TN November 30, 1871 GATHERED TO HIS FATHERS.–On the 17th of this month Thomas Finch, Esq., of this place, breathed his last. The long residence of the deceased among this people, and the prominence of his name, render a brief biography quite appropriate. He was born Nov. 12, 1796, in Mecklenburg county, Virginia. His father and mother emigrated in 1798 to Bourbon county, Kentucky, and here our subject was reared to manhood, and was one of fifteen children. At the age of 21 he came to Tennessee, and married Miss Edna Scruggs, of Bedford county. It was the Fall of 1818 when he settled about one mile and a half from Winchester, and has been a resident in our midst ever since. Most of his life was spent in farming, but he has filled several offices of honor and trust. About the year 1828 he was elected to the office of Coroner. From the year 1830 to July 1839 he served as Sheriff, which office he then resigned, and was elected in August following as one of two Representatives to which Franklin county was entitled in the Legislature, Thomas Howard, Esq., being the colleague of our subject. After serving his time in the Legislature, Thomas Finch retired to private life, but in 1846 he was elected Justice of the Peace for th! e first civil district of this county, in which office he served, with the exception of six years, until his death. Thomas Finch was married three times. His first wife died in 1832. In ‘33 he married Miss Francis [sic] B. Hudspeth. In 1846 she died and he married Miss Ann E. Moffett, and she died in 1867. In that year he joined the Baptist church in this place and continued a consistent member up to the departure of his soul into the shadowy realms of eternity. Thomas Finch was the father of eight children, five of whom are living. Six were born to him by his first wife, the other two were the offspring of his second wife. Of the five living, two are male, one of whom is Capt. Thos. H. Finch, our Clerk & Master. The other, named Matt, went to Texas in 1849, and lives there still. He was one of the first to volunteer in the war against Mexico, and fought bravely at Buena Vista. Capt. Thos. Finch, our Clerk & Master, went to Mexico among those who answered the last call for volunteres [sic], and in the late war between the North and South, he lost his right arm at the battle of Missionary Ridge, if we mistake not. And Thomas Finch, Esq., is "gathered to his fathers."