Thomas Caldwell
Thomas Caldwell was born in North Ireland in the year 1800. In 1821 he married Margaret Johnson. The following year they set sail for St. John’s, New Brunswick, where they stayed a short time, then crossed the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia, where they remained until 1834, when they emigrated to Medina County, Ohio. They remained at this place until 1838, then moved to Shelby County and located below Sidney, where he superintended work on the canal feeder for a time, then took a sub-contract on the canal, which he completed in the fall of 1841. The same fall he bought eighty acres of land in Washington Township and moved upon it. Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell raised a family of nine children, seven of whom are still living, viz., John, Sarah, Mary, Robert, James, Samuel, and Margaret. Of this number Sarah, Mary, and James are in the county.
John, the eldest of the family, went to California in 1850. He worked in the mines a couple of years and was then elected to the Slate Legislature. After filling his term in the Legislature he read law, was elected Judge for the county, and is now on the Bench of Supreme Court as Judge of the State of California. James, who is now on the home place, was born in Nova Scotia in 1834, has remained on the homestead all his life, and is now its proprietor.
Thomas Caldwell died in 1847. Mrs. Caldwell, after the death of her husband, kept her family together and raised them up to man and woman hood. She still survives and is hale and hearty at the age of eighty years.
From History of Shelby County, Ohio; R. Sutton & Co, Philadelphia PA, 1883