The first character to which we call the attention of the readers is that of the brave old hunter and Indian fighter, Abraham Thomas. He was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, in 1755. His father took his family to the frontiers of Virginia, and Abraham, while yet a boy, became a hunter and a splendid rifle shot. He had no opportunity for even the crude education of those early days, but the boy grew to manhood full of the restless energy of the border hunter and frontiersman, and hence it was not a matter of surprise that, without permission of his parents, he enlisted before he was nineteen years of age, in 1774, in Captain Michael Cressap's company to fight the Indians. Captain Cressap and his brother were noted Indian fighters, and it was the men under their command that killed the family of the celebrated Indian Chief Logan. His pathetic and eloquent recital of that sad event was written by Thomas Jefferson, and now stands as one of the ablest specimens of Indian eloquence. Captain Cressap, afterwards colonel, enlisted his men in the neighborhood of old Redstone Fort on the Monongahela river. He led his men into the Ohio territory up the Muskingum river. The border men met the Indians, had a severe battle, and defeated the red-skinned warriors and pushed on up the Muskingum valley until they reached the Indian town of Wapatomica, which Cressap's men captured and destroyed.

In the fall of 1774 another expedition, led by Governor Dunmore and General Lewis, went into the Ohio territory, the objective point of attack being the Indian towns of old Chillicothe, on the Scioto river. Again young Thomas left home without leave and joined the border army. There was trouble and dissensions in this army because the men doubted the good faith and patriotism of Governor Dunmore, but the Indians were met in battle and defeated. In 1775 the fort and settlement near Wheeling, Virginia, (now West Virginia), was threatened by the Indians, and an appeal for help was sent out to the brave frontiersmen of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Abraham Thomas, with twenty others from old Redstone settlement, went to their relief. The Indians came, but found the fort too well garrisoned for an open attack. They, however, lurked around in the bushes to capture or kill any straggler that might wander from the fort. After a week's confinement in the fort, the alarm had subsided, and the settlers were making arrangements to return to their homes, when the following incident occurred, which we copy from "Abraham Thomas' Recollections," a series of newspaper articles published in the Troy Times, in I839, and written by Hon. William Bosson, formerly of Troy, afterward a resident of Tennessee, and in his old age a resident of Greencastle, Indiana. These narratives throw much light on the early history of Miami county, and are referred to in a number of histories of Ohio, which indicate how much has been lost by the neglect of the early settlers in having no one to preserve their experience in printer's ink. Miami county owes a debt of gratitude to William Bosson, whose father owned the mills south of Troy, now owned and operated by Edwards Brothers. The reader will pardon this digression; and the writer will resume the narrative: "Hannah Wheat, an intrepid girl, having gone to her father's cabin for some purpose, saw Indians approaching it. She at once seized a feather bed, threw it over her back and ran for the fort, several shots were fired into the bed, but it proved an efficient shield for her person." The Indians remained for some time around the fort, but finding the settlers watchful and ready for a fight, withdrew.

In December, 1775, Abraham Thomas, when nineteen years of age, was married and commenced housekeeping in the primitive style of pioneers of that day. From 1776 to 1779 the Revolutionary war was fiercely raging and the war spirit reached the frontier, and the British aided and encouraged the Indians to war upon the border men of the colonies. Young Thomas bore a manly part in all the bitter contests of the border, against the British, Tories and Indians. In the meantime the fame of the rich soil and splendid hunting grounds of Ohio and Kentucky spread among the settlers of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and early in the spring of 1780 Abraham Thomas was one of a company of brave and enterprising adventurers who, with their families, descended the Ohio river in flat boats, to the falls of the river, where the city of Louisville now stands and where, at that time, General George Rogers Clark had established a strong fort.. The journey was dangerous and exciting, but the party safely reached the fort. They left their families at the fort and went into the interior to select homes. They were attacked by the Indians and two of the party killed. The Indians greatly outnumbered them, and they retreated to the nearest blockhouse, which was then called Fisher's Station. Soon after, the Indians returned across the Ohio, and the party went to the woods, built cabins, planted corn and returned to Louisville for their families. In the summer of 1780 General Clark organized an expedition with the object of destroying the Indian villages on Mad river, situated about four miles southwest of Springfield, the county seat of Clark county. These villages were called Piqua, and it was there, in 1768, the celebrated Indian chief, Tecumseh, was born. Abraham Thomas joined the expedition and as one of the best evidences of his standing among the Indian fighters of Kentucky, he was, although only twenty five years of age, selected by General Clark to act with the celebrated Daniel Boone as a scout for the army. The army reached the mouth of Licking river, and here the writer follows the narrative of Abraham Thomas. "Before the boats crossed to the Indian side, Daniel Boone and myself were taken in the foremost boat, and landed above a small cut in the bank, opposite the month of the Licking; we were required to spy the woods for Indian signs. I was much younger than Boone, and ran up the bank in great glee and cut into a beech tree with my tomahawk, which I verily believe was the first tree cut into by a white man on the present site of Cincinnati." After establishing a fort and cabins for a small garrison and stores for the same, the army under General Clark started for Mad river. After a hard march they reached the Indian towns and in a severe battle defeated the Indians, and destroyed their villages and cornfields in such a complete manner that the Indians forever abandoned the site of their old homes. The expedition returned to the fort at the falls of the Ohio, and Abraham Thomas returned to his family. After corn-planting in 1782, he volunteered in an expedition under General Clark for the purpose of destroying the Indian villages on the Great Miami river, near the present site of Piqua, Miami county, Ohio. The army consisted of one thousand men, and after a weary march they crossed Mad river, near the present site of Dayton, and marched on the east side of the Miami river until they reached a ford not far from the present site of Allen's Mills. There the army was discovered by a party of Indians traveling from Indian villages near the present site of Greenville to the Piqua towns. The Indians fled, leaving their squaws and pappooses in the hands of the soldiers, and among them was a white woman by the name of McFall who had been captured by the Indians in Kentucky. She was restored to her friends. When the army reached the Piqua towns the Indians, panic stricken, had fled, but General Clark destroyed the towns and corn fields, and also sent a party, of which Thomas was one, to burn and destroy a store on the Loramie river, kept by a Frenchman. Captain William Barbee, afterward a prominent citizen of Miami county, was with this expedition. There were five Indian warriors killed, and two soldiers of Clark's army. Here, as on Mad river, Clark made clean work of destroying the towns, which were built by the Shawnees and Miami tribes. Fisher's Station., where Mr. Thomas had his family, was often attacked by the Indians and a number killed. Mr. Thomas did his full share of the fighting.

In 1783 he again volunteered and went with an army of mounted riflemen under the command of Colonels Harrod and McGara on an expedition against the Macacheeks towns near the head waters of Mad river, not far from where West Liberty, in Champaign county, is now situated. The expedition was a complete success, and, with but little loss to the army, a number of Indians were killed, towns and corn fields destroyed. The success of these invasions of the Indian towns, and their destruction, had the effect of disheartening the Indians, and the settlers of Kentucky lived for a few years in comparative security. In 1808, with a small party of neighbors, Mr. Thomas emigrated to Ohio, and settled on a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, two miles south of Troy, on what is now called North-Cutt pike. On his farm he established a graveyard, known as Thomas cemetery. Here the dust of the old Indian fighter rests in sight of the "Blue Miami," and within a few miles of the trace he marched with Daniel Boone, as one of the scouts of the brave General George Rogers Clark. Above his grave, on a plain marble slab, is this modest inscription: "Abraham Thomas died April 5, 1843, aged 88 years; a Soldier of the Revolution." Many of his descendants are here and there in Ohio and Indiana, but in the hard grind of existence none of them gave attention to preserving the memory and history of their old pioneer ancestor, and it was only because of the curiosity and interest of the young man, William Bosson, in the old Indian fighter that there is preserved to Ohio and Miami county these" recollections," briefly given in a newspaper article.

Abraham Thomas was a type of Daniel Boone, a splendid marksman, a good hunter, a reliable and trusty scout, a brave Indian fighter, and he was one of the pioneers of Miami county to whom posterity owes a debt of gratitude. The writer will close this sketch by giving the description of the old pioneer written by Hon. William Bosson, March 27, 1839, and published in the Troy Times: "In this neighborhood lives one who manfully bears up under the experience of eighty-four years. He is yet playful and facetious, though dignified and tolerant; and is altogether one of nature's finished noblemen, such as is rarely to be met with in the more pretending, more polished and higher educated walks of life. This gentleman has been a pioneer in the western forests from his earliest boyhood days. He bore himself manfully in the savage conflicts of early history; and is now the contented proprietor of a small farm where those who can appreciate him love to partake of his frugal though liberally dispensed hospitality, while they listen with delight to his cheerful details of past exposure to the privations and dangers of the wilderness. Books have never been the instructors of this sylvan warrior. Other and more hardy objects of care and solicitude claimed his attention, yet the accuracy of his perceptions, the generosity of his sentiments, and the liberality of his mind, redeem him from the usual destiny of those who, like him, have passed the best years of life amidst the toils and dangers of primitive and belligerent settlements. This is Abraham Thomas, familiarly and endearingly called 'Father Thomas.'