The Thomas Reid Family

Margaret Reid Rankine of Ayrshire, Scotland, came to America (Canandaigua, N.Y.) in 1834 or 1835. Her brother Matthew and his wife, Susan, came in 1842 and settled at "Turkey Creek" near the Maumee River in Section 8, Damascus Twp. on land owned in part by Margaret's husband, John Rankine. In 1843, another brother, Thomas, with his three motherless children (James, Jessie and Tom, Jr.), his sister Agnes Grassam with her husband James, another sister, Jane, together with their mother, Jean (Gemmell) Reid, joined Matthew and Susan at the "Mill" on the banks of the Maumee.

Almira (Crockett) and Thomas Reid, 1854, at time of their marriage.

It had been planned for Matthew to run the "Mill" (a sawmill), but the mill was rendered inoperable by the building of the dam at Providence, and with a new and larger dam due to be built in 1843 it was decided to abandon the "Mill." The brothers then turned to farming.

In 1854 Thomas married Almira Crockett, daughter of Captain James and Mary (Haskell) Crockett. Their children were: Mary, Knott, Matthew, William, Charles, Edwin and Agnes. The family were pioneers in their neighborhood and experienced the privations of early days. The forests stretched in all directions, but the family soon had a fine farm cleared. By 1875 Thomas had around 360 acres of land in Section 8, Damascus Twp.

One of Thomas' sons homesteaded in South Dakota, one in Nebraska, one, Edwin, homesteaded in Montana. A son, James, served in the state legislature of both South Dakota and Idaho. Yet enough of his descendants settled on farms close by or adjacent to the "Home Place" that several miles of present County Road 5A were known as "Reid Street" at least as late as the 1960's. For many years "Reid Street News" was a feature of the Napoleon Northwest News.

Thomas' youngest daughter, Agnes, married Irven Myers, son of John Wesley and Martha Jane (Jennings) Myers. They raised their family on the farm in Section 17 of Damascus Twp. that is today owned by their only living son, Warren. During the early years of this century, Warren and his sisters, Nellie, Jessie (Rayle), Corinne (Wagner), and Martha found the miles of Reid Street populated by a host of relatives. Today only a few remain. The bodies of four generations of Reids and those of many Crocketts lie at rest in the old River Cemetery near Odessa. There is at least one great, great, great grandson today carrying the family name -Todd Reid Hagen, son of Kenneth Reid Hagen.

However, the memory of the Reids remains fresh for us, due in part, to the correspondence they left behind. Following is an excerpt from a letter from John Rankine to his brother-in-law, Matthew Reid, addressed to Turkey Creek, Henry Co., Ohio, dated Nov. 11, 1841.

"You are not far wrong in what you say as to the people you have to deal with. It will not annoy you so much by and bye. You will get accustomed to their ways, and only provide against them.

The people among whom you have lived are all bred to a fixed calling and follow it out without change. To hold their place respectably and successfully they are compelled to a certain degree of integrity - and they teach it to their children. In a new country with a thin population, the opinion of other men has little influence on individuals. They feel themselves fixed neither as respects occupation or place. They are like predatory animals and go single, they take what seems the shortest and easiest way of making the most of circumstances, and when they can no longer succeed in Ohio, we shall say, they flit to Wisconsin. From boyhood they are brought up to be traders, that is to over-reach each other. You will find the best of them little observant of their word."

Excerpt from a letter written by Thomas Reid to his brother-in-law Ben Crockett, dated Dec. 5, 1858:

"Depend on it, there is no true ground of consolation except the living faith that all things are under the immediate government of a God infinitely wise and good and who orders all things for the best. I am not a religious man in the common acceptance of the term, but feel that I possess that confidence in the goodness, wisdom, power and mercy of God that is able to comfort in afflictions that in themselves are too grievous to be borne."

Submitted by Mrs. Raymond Hagen