SEVENTH GENERATION

1320. Frost Thorn was born in 1793 in Glen Cove, LI, NY. He died on 3 Dec 1854 in Nacadoches, TX. Frost Thorne, born 1793 in Glen Cove, New York, earned the reputation of being the first millionaire in the State of Texas. He first came to Texas with the trading company of William Barr and Samuel Davenport.

On April 15, 1825, he and Hayden Edwards obtained empresario contracts from the Mexican Government. During the same year he married Edwards daughter Susannah, supposedly one of only five single white women in Nacadoches at the time. Charles Hoya, an early Nacadoches resident, remembered Thorn a short fat man "who looked as if he weighed as much as his own fat horse". Thorne's cheif interest was in the acquisition of land. He acquired titles to land grants, in addition to his empresario contract, whereby he obtained a share of each individual grant, until his holdings amounted to hundreds of thousands of acres.

He was a public spirited citizen who donated land for church sites, served on the board of health in Nacadoches, and aided Stephen F. Austin in attracting colonist to Texas. He was elected to the state legislature of Coahuila and Texas and was chariman of the committee of vigilance and safety during the Texas Revolution. He also sponsored education, aiding in the establishment of Nacadoches University and serving on the board of trustees.

Frost Thorne was active in the Masonic Lodge and was initiated into Milam Lodge on the 16 of August 1837.

His business activities included a trade route between Texas and the United States, a general store in Nacadoches which he operated in partnership with Hayden Edwards, a banking institution, a salt mine located on La Nana Creek near Nacadoches, and a lumber business. Thorne also operated large farms in both Texas and Louisiana and attempted the establishment of towns in Texas. One of them, Thornville was located north of Nacadoches. His business activities resulted in the accumulation of a fortune estimated well in excess of a million dollars. At his death in 1854, he was buried in Oak Grove Cemetary in Nacadoches.

Frost Thorn was the first of the Thorne's from New York to arrive in Texas and although his parents spelled their last name with an "e" he chose to drop the letter after comming to Texas. Two of his nephews, John Stephen Thorn, and Leo Mortimer Thorn followed his lead and dropped the e from their names as well.

See this link:
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/TT/fth32.html

He was married to Susannah Wroe Edwards (daughter of Hayden Edwards and Susan Bell) in 1825 in Nacadoches, TX. Susannah Wroe Edwards was born in 1799 in Kentucky. She died on 11 Dec 1891 in Tyler, TX. She is the Widow of His Uncle Frost Thorne (His Dad's little Brother)

Susannah Wroe Edwards was born in 1799, in Stafford County, Virginia, to the land Empressario Hayden Edwards and his wife Susannah Bell Edwards. When she married Frost Thorne, in 1825, it was said that she was one of the 5 single white women in Nacadoches.

According to letters written by the Thorne's attorney, Charles Starr, Susannah traveled extensively with her children, Frost II and Mary Marcellite, both back east and in Europe. In 1856, after she had been widowed 2 years and at the age of 56, she married James Frost Thorn who was a nephew of Frost Thorne. James Thorne's father Hallet, and Frost Thorne were brothers. Not much is known about James and how he came to Texas, but it is possible that he met Susannah during her travels back east and came to Texas after Frost died, perhaps to help in settling the Frost Thorne Estate.

Not many years later, the couple moved back to New York, and Susannah gave the Frost Thorne home in Nacodoches to her sister, Sarah Davenport. Mrs. Davenport, widowed of one of the founders of Bar & Davenport, the trading firm which originally brought Frost Thorne to Texas, married Nacodoches resident William Hart and they converted the large home into the "Hart Hotel". The home was located at the site of what is today the Mize Department Store in Nacodoches. HISTORICAL NACODOCHES, by noted Texas historian R. B. Blake incorrectly states that Susannah Thorne married William Hart.

On 12 January, 1876, Susannah's husband, James F. Thorn, died. Tragically, on July 20, the same year, an accident claimed the lives of both her son, Frost Thorne II, and her daughter Marcellite Thorne Garner, as well as her son-in-law and two other men. They were drowned when the yacht MOHAWK, owned by her son-in-law, William T. Garner, sank on it's maiden voyage during a squall in New York Harbor.

It is not clear whether Susannah returned to Texas at that time or remained in New York, but she eventually returned to Texas with her grandson, Frost Thorn III, and lived in Tyler until her death in 1891 at the age of 92 years. A certified copy of her will appears in Volume 46, page 337 of the Deed Records of Rusk County, TX. Her 2nd husband was her Nephew-in-Law. Son James of Hallet Thorne.

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She married (1st) Frost Thorne. After he died, she married James Frost Thorne, the nephew of her first husband. James Frost Thorne's father, Hallet Thorne, and Susannah's first husband Frost Thorne were brothers. Frost Thorn and Susannah Wroe Edwards had the following children:

+2112 i. Mary Marcellite Thorn.
+2113 ii. Frost Thorn II.
2114 iii. Estelle Thorn.