Biography of Thomas F. Reynold

Perhaps no man in the County of Nez Perces has had a wider experience in the northwest than the subject of this article who has traveled in many capacities and has met the incidents of the frontier in every shape, being a man of great courage and stability and having conducted himself in this long time in a worthy and commendable manner, ever manifesting courage, sagacity, endurance and ability, which has been dominated with sound principles.

Mr. Reynold was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on May 10, 1829, being the son of Edwards and Clidna (Michaels) Reynold. The father was a native of Ireland, born in 1801, and died in Iowa in 1840, while the mother was born in France in 1809, and her father was a German. She died in 1871. Mr. Reynold, senior, was a farmer and distiller. The parents came to America and settled in Pennsylvania and when our subject was six years of age came to Cincinnati. Another move was made to Dayton, and then to Iowa, in which last place Thomas F. was educated. The father bought land and farmed in Iowa and in 1852 came with his family to Portland, where he worked at painting and boating.

Our subject was one of a party that accompanied George B. McClellan to meet the first governor of Washington, I. I. Stevens, and after that he was in the employ of the government for a number of years, being pack master on the expedition that surveyed the line between British Columbia and the United States. After one year in this work, he returned to Washington. In 1866 he went to farming in Columbia County, Washington, and in 1884 came to Lewiston. He operated a ferry boat there until 1892, when he came to his present home, five miles south from Juliaetta, taking the land from the Nez Perces reservation which was then opened.

Mr. Reynold married a Nez Perces woman, Polly, in 1863, in Lewiston. His brothers and sisters are named as follows: Alary Ann. in Ottumwa, Iowa; Clidna, there also; Joseph, at Oskaloosa, Iowa; Elizabeth, deceased; James M., in Iowa: Edward, deceased; Agatha, deceased; John V., deceased. To Mr. and Mrs. Reynold there have been born two children, Clidna, deceased: Agatha, wife of James H. Evans, on Nez Perces reservation. Mr. Reynold has always taken an interest in the affairs of politics, being a strong Jeffersonian Democrat and is usually a delegate to the County convention. He is an adherent of the Roman Catholic Church. He has a fine farm of one quarter section and well improved and owes forty head of cattle and raises much wheat and many hogs. He has a large grove of the Lanthos trees. Mr. Reynold is a man of much experience and has done much commendable work in the northwest and is entitled to the credit of a real pioneer.

Back to: Nez Perce Biographies

Source: An Illustrated History of Northern Idaho, Embracing Nez Perce, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone Counties, Western Historical Publishing Company, 1903

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