My Genealogy Hound

Thomas Rimer, an old settler and substantial farmer of Knox County, was born December 17, 1828, in the city of Bath, Somersetshire, England, and is the third of the five children (one deceased) born to John and Jane (Crosby) Rimer, natives of Somersetshire, where they were reared, married and lived until their respective deaths in about 1832 and 1854. The father was married twice, the issue of his first marriage being two children. He was a confectioner and baker by trade, but the latter part of his life he was a coach and mail contractor. Our subject was educated at the common schools of the country, and at the age of eleven traveled on foot to Portsmouth, where he boarded a man-of-war, engaged as a cabin boy, and continued upon the water, sailing over European seas, visiting the West Indies, etc., until they again landed at Portsmouth, at the expiration of three years. He then went to London, and became a steward and coach man. In 1849 he was united in marriage, in London, to Mary Dary, by whom he had twelve children, nine of whom are now living. In 1852 he started with his family for America, and after a six weeks’ voyage landed in New York City, and left the next day for Philadelphia, where he was employed as a keeper in the Franklin Insane Asylum. About a year later he removed to Harrison County, Ky., where he worked for the Covington & Lexington Railroad for five years. September 1, 1857, he started for Missouri, and reached Knox County October 3, of the same year, and at first moved on a farm owned by Dr. James H. Campbell, but in the spring of 1863 moved on a forty-acre tract he had purchased, and from that time continued to add to his possessions, until he now owns over 1,000 acres, nearly all in one tract. His first wife having died February 13, 1871, our subject was again married, June 29, 1872, in Randolph County, Mo., to Sarah E. Tucker, a native of that county, and born on April 20, 1850. To that union seven children have been born, five of whom are living. From the time that he was but a lad of eleven years of age, our subject had been dependent upon his own resources for a living, and, from a poor man with only $5 the day he landed in New York, has now become one of the most energetic, prosperous and prominent business men of Knox County, the secret of his phenomenal success lying in the fact that when occasion demanded he could and would do the duty that lay nearest him. In politics he is a Democrat, and cast his first presidential vote for Grover Cleveland, not having voted before on account of not having taken out his second naturalization papers. Mr. Rimer, however, is not a partisan, but believes in voting for the best man, whatever his party. He, his wife and six children are active and faithful members of the Sutherland Methodist Episcopal Church.