Thomas Large Henly in Argentina


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


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Updated 14 December 1998