Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 686 - 687 

THOMAS J. WORTHINGTON, a resident of Valley Center, where he is engaged in carrying on a meat-market, came to Sedgwick County in November, 1886, from Spink County, Dak., where he had been engaged in farming for about five years. On locating where he now lives he purchased his present business, and has the leading establishment in that line in the town.

            Mr. Worthington is a native of Frederick County, Md., born Sept. 8, 1840, and is the son of Charles and Ann E. (Hart) Worthington, both of whom were natives of Maryland. His father, Charles Worthington, had received the benefits of a collegiate education, and was also a graduate of a law college, and practiced at the bar all his life. He spent some twenty-five years in the active duties of his profession in Logan County, Ill., whither he had moved, but returned to Maryland, where he died in November, 1869, at the age of seventy years. At the time of his death he was attending a law case in Baltimore, Md., and died of heart disease after only a short sickness. His wife followed him in death in June, 1876. They were the parents of eleven children, seven boys and four girls, whose names were as follows: Walter; Charles, deceased; Henry C., Thomas J., James K., Eugene, Samuel F., Sarah C., Mollie, Gracie and Elvira, the two latter deceased.

            The subject of this narrative remained at home with his parents, part of the time in Maryland, and part at Atlanta, Logan Co., Ill., receiving in his boyhood days the elements of an excellent education. After leaving home he apprenticed himself as a beginner in the house and sign-painting trade, and served out his time. For eighteen years he followed that business in Logan County, but conceiving that the life of a tiller of the soil was more independent and lucrative, he emigrated to Spink County, Dak., where he took up under homestead and pre-emption laws a tract of 320 acres of land, on which he lived some five years. Reports of the greater fruitfulness of the State of Kansas being brought to his notice, he removed to Sedgwick County, after having rented his farm in Dakota, which he still owns. He has on this latter place a good house, and comfortable barns and thrifty groves of trees. About 165 acres of it are broken and under cultivation.

            While quietly living an inmate of his father's house, the storm of civil war broke over our beloved country, and in response to the call of the General Government for men, Mr. Worthington enlisted in April, 1861, in Company E, 7th Illinois Infantry. This gallant regiment was the first one raised in the State, and was mustered into the service of the United States at Cairo, Ill., July 25, 1861, and was under the command of Col. John Cook. Capt. Esterbrook was the Captain of the company to which our subject was attached. With this heroic regiment our subject participated in many of the battles in Missouri. Kentucky and Tennessee, among which were Ft. Donelson, where so many of them laid down their lives on the altar of their country; Shiloh, where they were a part of the unfortunate division of Gen. W. H. L. Wallace, the latter of whom was one of the slain; Corinth, where the regiment distinguished itself, and was thanked in the general orders; and on many another stricken field. After about fifteen months service, the subject of our sketch was mustered out of the service, at Cairo, Ill., and discharged in August, 1862, and returned to his home in Illinois.

            The marriage ceremony which united the destinies of Mr. Worthington and Miss Hattie L. Westfall took place June 6, 1864. The bride was a native of Indiana, and the daughter of Job and Rosanna (Sumner) Westfall, who were the parents of but one other child, Miranda, who was the elder. Her father died about 1858, but her mother still survives, and makes her home with Miranda in the State of Minnesota. To Mr. and Mrs. Worthington were born six children, as follows: Rosa Ella, William, Emily, Fred, Cleo and Deana. Rosa E. is the wife of D. H. Reeder, a merchant of Minneapolis, Minn., and the mother of one child, Dean; she was married Nov. 8, 1883. The rest of the children are single. Mrs. Worthington died Jan. 24, 1888. Her death was not only greatly mourned by her family, to which she was so greatly attached, but by the whole community. She was a consistent member of the Christian Church, and an active worker in the religious circles of the town.

            As a Democrat in politics, Mr. Worthington takes great interest in all political questions, although not an aspirant for political preferment. He is a highly respected and esteemed citizen of the place, and as a merchant bears the reputation of an honest, upright and trustworthy man. His gentlemanly deportment and genial manners are gaining him hosts of friends, and rapidly increasing his business. He is a prominent member of the I. O. O. F., and fully lives up to the precepts inculcated by the order.

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