"An Illustrated History of Skagit and Snohomish Counties."  Interstate
Publishing Company, 1906.  p. 634.
 
ROBERT P. THOMAS

     saw-mill man and merchant of Anacortes, is one of the prominent citizens of
that city, as well as a man of recognized ability throughout the Northwest
country. He has been mayor of his town, is a public spirited gentleman and one
who has received honors from his fellows and peers.  Mr. Thomas was born in
Philadelphia in 1861, the son of Robert P. Thomas, also a native of the Quaker
city, whose forebears came to this country with the illustrious William Penn.
The elder Thomas was born in 1820 on the land received under grant by his
ancestors from the founder of Philadelphia in 1682, which has since been
condemned by the city for park purposes, and forms a portion of Fairmount park.
The elder Mr. Thomas enlisted in the Civil War in 1861, and received successive
promotions until he was killed, February 7, 1864, in a skirmish in Virginia,
while ranking as colonel.  Mrs. Sarah (Bacon) Thomas, his wife, was also a
Philadelphian, born in 1822, and was the mother of six children, of whom the
subject of this sketch is the youngest. Robert P. Thomas, of this sketch,
received his education in the Pordicey school of Philadelphia, graduating when
sixteen years of age and at once entering upon the wholesale drug business as
clerk. After four years' experience in that line he went (1881) to St. Paul,
Minnesota, and entered the employ of the Northern Pacific railroad, serving two
years as clerk and timber inspector and in 1883 becoming general fuel and timber
agent at St Paul.  He served in that capacity for nine years, resigning in
1892 and coming to Tacoma.  He followed various pursuits for two years and then
leased a couple of small shingle mills near Tacoma and operated them
successfully for two years. At the end of this period, hearing of the financial
condition of the mill at Anacortes, he came here and looked the proposition
over. It was a shingle mill built in 1891 by the Anacortes Co-operative Shingle
Company, but had changed hand, several times and was then for sale by the
mortgagees. It was the first mill on Fidalgo bay. Mr. Thomas decided to purchase
the mill. He operated it as a shingle mill until the summer of 1900 when he
remodeled it into a saw-mill and has continued to operate it ever since.
     In 1891 Mr. Thomas married Miss Effie Lahr to whom one child was born,
Sarah. In 1902 he was again married and to Miss Mary E. Colt. In fraternal
circles Mr. Thomas is a Mason, of the Royal Arch degree, a Mystic Shriner and a
grand regent. In politics he is a Republican and active in all party matters and
councils. He was mayor of Anacortes from 1900 to 1903 and has served in the city
council for two years. He was also a member of the Washington commission to the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Mr. Thomas has engaged in a wide field of
activities, and in each of them he has been a leader. He has fine qualities of
mind and heart and is a whole-souled, public spirited man.

     
*******************

Submitted to the Washington Biographies Project in January 2009 by Diana Smith.
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.