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Martin Thomas Ex-Slave


This is not family but interesting none the less. Martin Thomas is buried in the Fremont Cemetery, Tripoli, Iowa. I had known about this graves site for many years as it just said Martin Thomas, Ex-Slave. No dates but had a Civil War Star. This came up in a conversation a week or so back and I got to wondering about his story so I did a little searching in the newspaper archives and found a fair amount about him and thought I would share. He was born around 1845 and Died 1903. Was married briefly and had 2 children. He seemed to be well liked in Tripoli and surrounding area but this can not be said about his wife. It was written in the paper that on Easter Day 1887 he ate 4 dozen hard boiled eggs in one sitting. That must of been big news as it was in the paper for 2 consecutive weeks.


The following are a couple of newspaper articles about when he was married and when they were getting divorced. If you are easily offended you might want to skip reading the articles. These were written in late 1800's-early 1900's and they are a bit raw and not politically correct in today's society.


 

Waverly Newspaper January 18, 1894

Martin Thomas, the well-known colored man of Tripoli, has taken unto himself a wife, the fortunate young lady being Miss Bell Sward, a favorite in colored society circles of Independence. The wedding occurred at the residence of the bride’s parents Monday afternoon, and the happy couple passed through Waverly Tuesday, en route for Tripoli, where they will reside.

Martin has lived on the Wapsie since the close of the war. He is the only colored man ever permanently residing there, yet but few men with white skins have more or warmer friends. A nature as sunny as the Alabama clime in which he was born and a heart as big as a watermelon combine to make him a favorite with all, but not the least of his good traits are his habits of industry and frugality which have enable him to acquire a comfortable property.

He is quite a character in his way and has an interesting history. He was born on a cotton plantation in southern Alabama and was a small but troublesome item in the chattels of an aristocratic old lady until he was about nine years of age. His mistress had several grown children, who on each Christmas day gathered about the family hearthstone and on such occasions the doting mother invariably made all happy by giving each a darky for a Christmas gift.

In his youth, to use his own words, Martin “was a bad egg,” causing his mistress no end of trouble by his mischievousness and so it happened that on Christmas, 1864, Martin had arrived to a size that was unhandy to spank - it being the old lady’s custom to thus chastise the unruly pickaninnies whilst holding their heads between her knees - he was summoned with others to the parlor and presented with all due ceremony to the eldest son. On the plantation of the latter, wither he was taken, he found the punishment to be of a more substantial kind than he had hitherto been enjoying. He somehow couldn’t accustom himself to a thrashing, and so one dark night, hearing that Yankee troops were but ten miles distant, he made a bold dash for liberty.

He reached the Union lines without mishap. The soldiers greeted the kinky-haired little individual cordially and a troop of cavalry men at once adopted him for a mascot, furnishing him with a horse and accoutrements and a uniform twice too large for him. He stayed with the company till it was mustered out in the fall of 1866 and then came north with one of its members, Volney Streeter, who a short time later moved to Bremer county and settled on the Wapsie. Martin Thomas accompanied him and has stuck there ever since. This, briefly, is the story that will be told some little Thomas's while nestled on their father’s knee, a few years hence.


 

Waverly Newspaper May 10, 1900

Says Marriage Is a Failure. Martin Thomas, Tripoli's well known colored character, was in town of Monday employing counsel to resist an action for divorce and alimony brought by the kinky-haired belle who lured him into the meshes of the matrimonial net some five or six years ago Their marriage relation had never been a very pleasant one from the first, owing to the fact that they had no tastes in common save in regard to such trifles as chicken, watermelon, etc. In essential things they were as a ill mated as could be imagined. Martin came to Tripoli a mere boy and his character has been considerably affected by his environment. He grew up somewhat of a German in manner and mode of life as well as in tastes and inclinations. Until he fell beneath the spell of the dusky syren he played an accordion in preference to a banjo, preferred lager beer to nigger gin, and enjoyed singing "Ach, mient lieber Augoogt" above any plantation melody that was ever written. His wife, on the other hand, was a negress of the cake-walking kind-& regular laundry queen, with more notions as to style and etiquette than Martin had over dreamed existed. She was also frisky, not to say gay, and possessed a temper that often "riz" to al temperature warm enough to fry eggs. Most anyone could have told Martin that his matrimonial venture would turn out badly, but he would not have heeded if they had, so blind is love and deaf and dumb besides. The fell step was takon, and Martin's troubles began forth with. Not only did the course of true love not run smooth, but it was full of interminable jolts, and jangles, not to mention occasional incidents in which Martin was more or less cut up by a butcher knife in the hands of his dusky spouse. For five years, however, did the long suffering husband put up with this rag-time sort of existence, and he would perhaps be enduring it yet had his wife not quitted him of her own volition. Last Fourth of July she went to visit her folks in Independence, and that was the last he saw of her. Martin didn't write or send money, and he was just beginning to congratulate himself in the conclusion that he was quit of her when along came a constable with a notice of the action aforesaid. Mrs. Thomas wants $500 alimony down and $20 a month thereafter. Martin has some property, but he vows that every dollar of it shall go for defense rather than a cent for tribute. Besides, he offers to wager $500 that the defense he will make against the proceeding will go farther toward proving that marriage is a failure than anything on the subject that has yet been written.



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