The next we hear of Thomas is in 1869 when he returned to England to
advertise a scheme whereby young men were offered an opportunity to
learn farming and eventually own a plot of land in the Santa Fe
region of Argentina.
In April 1870 he sailed on the Royal mail Steamer Oneida from
England with his family and 80 young men, each of whom had paid
£150 to join the scheme. The scheme was well thought of in most
quarters and and had the support of the Argentine President
Sarmiento. Back home in Calne, before he departed Thomas continued to
play a full part in the social life of Calne; he sang at a Christmas
Church Concert together with his eldest daughter (singing 'Maryland'
was his forte); he attended a meeting of the Calne Railway Company of
which he was a Director and he attended a Parish Church Council
meeting. From local newspaper reports he was well thought of. This
second colony was doomed to failure almost from the start. The man
with whom Thomas had contracted to buy land (some 27000 acres) near
the town of Fraile Muerto was a crook. Although widely respected in
Argentina as Steam Plough Melrose, having introduced the
steam-plough into that country from the USA, he, Don Alison Melrose,
was actually James Hume Wright on the run from Glasgow in Scotland
where he had embezzled his employer. Just before Thomas was due to
arrive someone identified Melrose and he fled to Brazil. Thomas was
left with no land to go to. He had to negotiate for another Estancia
near Rosario. Meanwhile his would-be colonists had to be accomodated
in hotels in Rosario and this cost money. To cut a long story short,
Thomas had cash-flow problems and by the end of 1870 the colony which
he eventually established at the estancia Santa Catalina south
of Rosario, folded up and the colonists dispersed. The Emigration
Commissioners in London were highly critical of Thomas and accused
him of deserting the colonists and disappearing without accounting
for the money he had received. This was disputed by the Editor of the Brazil
and River Plate Times who said Thomas's accounts had been
properly audited and that he was still living in Rosario. In a letter
to the Buenos Aires Herald in 1871 Thomas stated that he intended to
continue growing flax at an estancia (probably las Playas) near
Fraile Muerto which he had purchased from Mr. Purdie ( a Land Agent).
At that point I have lost track of Thomas. His eldest son lived in
Hackensack, New Jersey from 1871 and set up in business there as a
wine importer. I have located two of Thomas's daughters in Victoria,
BC. Anne and Marion. Their Brother Clement also lived with them from
1920 - 1950. I do not yet know when they arrived there. Curiously
Marion died in Mobridge, South Dakota but was buried In Victoria. She
was en route from the East Coast to Victoria when she was
taken ill at Mobridge. I am trying to find who she was visiting - she
would have been aged 76 when she died. Anne died after 1952.
I suspect that Thomas emigrated to the USA some time after 1871. His
wife and family were in Calne in 1871, staying with her family at
Berril's Farm in Calne. I have not found Thomas there but I know that
he was involved then in selling his Mill in Calne. In 1881 Thomas's
wife Catherine was living in Bristol with two of her daughters but
there was no sign of Thomas. Catherine died in Belleville, New Jersey
in 1902 |