In the late fall of 1839, Dr. Thomas left the life of an editor and farmer in Virginia intending to concentrate on farming in rural northwest Illinois. This only lasted two years, when he conceded failure and then moved to St. Charles, Illinois around Christmas, 1841. He left Illinois in 1843, intending only a brief excursion to collect on a debt, but never returned. Importantly, after he left Illinois, he was largely separated from mainstream Campbellism.
Such is the broad outline. We have already discussed his debate with a Mormon elder which took place in St. Charles in the middle of 1842. What we will do here is:
- fill in the details of his sojourn in Illinois from contemporary records.
- describe his work as writer in The Sr. Charles Patriot and The Investigator.
- talk about the Franklin Institute, the first medical college in Illinois, of which Dr. Thomas was president, but which came to an ignominious end.
- discuss the possible motivation for his abandoning any cooperation with the Campbellites to subsequently become largely independent of any formal religious affiliation once he left Illinois.
Life as a farmer in Longgrove
Robert Roberts tells us that Dr. Thomas moved to Illinois with his invalid wife, 4 year-old daughter, brother and two servants. A letter written in January, 1840 describes his location as “Longgrove, La Salle County, Illinois.” The current Longrove (one “g”), Illinois, which is about 30 miles northwest of Chicago, was not so named until 1849. As far as I can tell from the local histories, the place Dr. Thomas moved to is a tiny village now called Pavillion, in Kendall County about 5 miles southwest of Yorkville (50 miles west of Chicago). Pavillion was in La Salle County as it existed in 1841: Kendall County formed in 1842. He and his family did not live on the farm until probably some time in February, 1840; meanwhile he lived with his brother-in-law James Hunt in Naperville, about 18 miles away from Longgrove [now called Pavillion]. (Not a quick commute in 1840: probably about 3 hours on horseback.)
Using Dr. Thomas’ own account, Robert Roberts wrote that farming in the northwest was not for Dr. Thomas. A fall in the price of wheat meant he could not afford to pay for much help, and the physical labor involved was not suited to his physique. The various histories make little further mention of the servants or his brother, although we know his brother was still in the area in 1845 as he wrote a testimonial published in the “Herald” of 1845. So for the second and final time Dr. Thomas abandoned life as a farmer and moved to the town of St. Charles (30 miles due west of Chicago), on the Fox River about 20 miles upstream Robert Roberts, who is our only source for these years, wrote that even his removal was not without incident; the sled he and his family were riding in broke down on Christmas day 1841.
The reason for his removal to St. Charles is fairly apparent. The physical drudgery of farming, and the lack of any opportunity for spreading the Truth, would have made easy his decision to move. This, with the advantage of being able to publish a newspaper using the prized printing press he had brought in a wagon all the way from Virginia, made his removal to the largest local town very attractive.
Dr. Thomas and the “St. Charles Patriot…”
The local records contain substantial information on Dr. Thomas while he was in St. Charles. Although he is listed as a journalist, doctor, and minister, it is clear he now made most of his living as a journalist. The History of Kane County, written in 1908, puts it this way: “It is fitting that the first newspaper as well as the first religious newspaper should be published in St. Charles, then the most important place in Kane County; and consequently we find that on February 5, 1842 Rev. John Thomas, D.D. (sic) issued the rust number of the St. Charles Patriot and the Fox River Advocate. The office was in the second story of a building which stood on the east side of the river, near the northwest corner of Main and First Street. It was a small paper, but exceedingly well conducted. Before the third issue the building was destroyed by fire. Another outfit was procured — Ira Minard going to Hennepin, on the Illinois River, to procure a press, and the paper was revived as the St. Charles Patriot, Fox River Advocate and Kane County Herald. Dr. Daniel Waite succeeded Dr. Thomas about 1843.”
(Ira Minard was a prominent local citizen, holding most of the elected offices at various times: another source notes that “Ira Minard purchased the press for the good of the place.”)
This account somewhat differs from Robert Roberts’ account in his biography of Dr. Thomas, in which he wrote that Dr. Thomas took his family after the fire to Hennepin, and there opened a new printing office. Hennepin is about 120 miles away from St. Charles, down first the Fox River and then the Illinois River. There is no evidence that Dr. Thomas ever went there, much less moved his family. Other than this, and the fact that Robert Roberts states Dr. Thomas was loaned $340 to buy the press, the account essentially agrees with that of Robert Roberts.
I have not yet found any extant copies of this paper, nor more than one issue of “The Investigator,” which Dr. Thomas also published from St. Charles. (If any of my readers has any knowledge of any existing copies of “The Investigator,” please let me know: address in ALS diary or via Bro. Don Styles.)
Robert Roberts also detailed the printing office fire referred to above. “Before the first number of the projected paper was issued, however, the building in which he had opened his office, and in which his books, medicines, and printing materials were stored caught fire and burnt to the ground. Intelligence of the conflagration was brought to him at three o’clock in the morning. The messenger told him the place was destroyed, with all its contents, and wished him to come to the spot at once. The Doctor told him that, if everything was destroyed, he could do no good by coming out at that time of the morning, and went to bed again. When it was light, he got up and went to the place, and found it a heap of ashes.”
The Franklin Medical College
A Dr. Richards opened a medical college, the first in the state, in St. Charles in November, 1842 or February, 1843 (sources differ.) Dr. Thomas is listed on the faculty of this college in several places as filling one of four chairs, with Dr. Richards also filling the chair of Anatomy and Surgery. Contemporary sources confirm he was President and Lecturer in Chemistry (and Pharmacy), as Robert Roberts records. It seems unlikely that it contributed much to his income however: records show the first significant session was a single course of lectures in 1843-44 to 15-20 students. As Dr. Thomas left St. Charles in mid-1843, he cannot have taught even the first year.
Apart from this work, there is no evidence he practiced his medical profession to any extent. The contemporary list of doctors refer to him as follows: “Dr. John Thomas, who located in St. Charles subsequent to 1840, took to journalism.”
Dr. Richards is notorious in the annals of St. Charles for involvement in grave robbing. Robert Roberts records the suspicion of such an incident while Dr. Thomas was there and publishing his paper. Dr. Thomas reported it, but “the excitement, however, died away, and the matter was forgotten.” It seems strange to us, but with no organized or legal supply of cadavers, medical students were at that time forced to desperate measures to obtain bodies for dissection. Dr. Thomas clearly was no stranger to the problem himself. In May, 1829, as a “Demonstrator of Anatomy” in London, England, he had written a letter to The Lancet supporting the Anatomy Bill. This bill said in part “all persons dying in prisons, hospitals, or workhouses, if not claimed within 72 hours, are to be given up to licensed teachers.” (The letter is the first publication of Dr. Thomas extant, as far as I know.)
Later, in 1849, six years after Dr. Thomas left, one of Dr. Richards’ students, John Rood, had removed the body of a young married lady from its grave and taken it to the dissecting table. An armed mob of perhaps 300 marched on Dr. Richards residence; John Rood was killed and Dr. Richards wounded in the shoulder, from which injury he died four years later. Thus ended the Franklin Medical College.
Leader of a group of Disciples (Campbellites)
Records show that Dr. Thomas was instrumental in forming the first group of Campbellites in St. Charles. As one history says: “There has been, for many years, a number of the denomination known as Disciples (Campbellites) in St. Charles, and at various times services have been held mostly in private houses. Rev. (!) John Thomas was the leader as early as 1840, and is remembered as having established one of the first two newspapers in the place in February, 1842.”
Whether he continued as a Campbellite in mind or heart after 1843 is most dubious.
The Investigator
Sometime in mid-1842, Dr. Thomas ceased publication of the St. Charles Patriot and Dr. Waite took over. Dr. Thomas then commenced publishing The Investigator, according to the Doctor, Robert Roberts and Campbellite sources. According to an account in The Herald of the Future Age, the first issue of The Investigator was in May, 1842. Only one copy of the magazine is known to exist, issue 7, dated 1843, displayed in the Christadelphian Office. Robert Roberts never saw one. Its contents are therefore unknown in detail, the one available having only limited religious content: it is subtitled “an independent advocate of truth.”
From Campbellite sources, however, it is clear that its tenor was quite unlike that of The Advocate, of which copies of all issues can be found. The Advocate was a magazine that attempted to change Campbellism from within: The Investigator attacked from outside. There was a special issue, published in early 1843, that Dr. Thomas circulated very widely, and in it he strongly attacked Alexander Campbell and his position on baptism and the immortal soul. The magazine was also circulated in England: we know this because a letter was later published in The Herald from Huddersfield, England, which refers to The Investigator and endorses Dr. Thomas’ view of baptism. (The letter also mentions Benjamin Wilson, who later emigrated from England to Illinois with his three brothers and whose life intertwines with both Dr. Thomas and the Church of God of the Abrahamic Covenant, as we shall see in a later article, God Willing.) Campbell commented in April, 1843 on this lost Investigator specially noting that Dr. Thomas fully developed “those very views which he (Dr. Thomas) solemnly promised not to propagate.” The Investigator only lasted for about a year, with ten issues being published in St. Charles, and the last two in Louisville, Kentucky late in 1843 or early 1844. Again, we know of the contents of one of those from Campbellite literature, for in it Dr. Thomas published his own account of the reconciliation debate between himself and Campbell.
Abandonment of Campbellism
Robert Roberts says, “Circumstances were combining to force the doctor into the career that was to result in the realization of the Truth, free from the doctrines and associations of Campbellism.” But what circumstances? And why did the Doctor decide to abandon any further attempts at reconciliation, such as occurred in 1838, and attack the Campbellites in terms such as he must have known would lead to his virtual expulsion, as occurred in 1844? We have already seen he was still nominally a Campbellite early in his stay in St. Charles, and the only religious event we know of during 1842 was his debate with a Mormon elder.
Could it be that this quiet period of reflection, with the only demands on his time being journalism (which he clearly did easily and well) convinced Dr. Thomas that Campbellism was not then, nor likely ever would be, the path of the Truth?
With God leading him, it took four more years before the publication of his “confession and abjuration” in 1847 — his triumphant declaration that he had found the Truth at last. But there was a definite turning point during 1843. Before that time, Dr. Thomas did not encourage his followers to split from the Campbellites, nor did he separate himself from Campbellism. After that, whether consciously or not is hard to tell, his whole attitude was an unremitting search for and proclamation of the Truth. Now nothing and nobody could stop him.
Dr. Thomas left Illinois in 1843, not to return for many years. His following had not been large in numbers (Campbell comments that the eight who followed him in Louisville were more numerous than those in Illinois) and we know that very few if any were left ten years later. It is possible that one of those few was Abraham Coffmann, who became such a strong supporter later, and at whose farm the name “Christadelphian” was originated.
We do know, from a letter published by Robert Roberts, that John Oatman became a supporter of Dr. Thomas while living in Dundee, Illinois, which is about 40 miles north of St. Charles. This is interesting because Oatman was instrumental in the origin of the Christadelphians in Texas, as living descendants will confirm. It also shows that Dr. Thomas preached quite widely in the regions around St. Charles. (There is a suspicion that Abraham Lincoln met Dr. Thomas during this period: I have been unable to confirm this, but will deal with possible later contacts between them in another article, God willing.)
The reasons for Dr. Thomas’ departure from Illinois appear to have been a desire to find a more fruitful area for spreading the Truth. He found it in Louisville, at least initially, so he stayed there for about a year. His dealing with the Millerites there, and the development of the Doctor’s views on the physical return of our Lord, are part of another episode.
Note on sources. The old histories of Illinois are to be found in the Detroit Public Library, among other places. (Note that the fire in Chicago in 1871, and a fire in the Historical Society in St. Charles in 1933, appear to have eliminated much local source material.) The Millennial Harbinger has some information on The Investigator, as does the Herald of the Future Age. Dr. Thomas’ address in Illinois is from John Lea’s “Life of Dr. Thomas.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One