Thomas S. Briscoe

        Thomas S. Briscoe, editor of the Hartford City Telegram, was born in Kent County, Maryland, October 10, 1828, son of Samuel E. and Margaret Elizabeth (Frisby) Briscoe. His paternal grandfather was a Methodist preacher. His father died September 9, 1871, at the age of sixty-three years, at Galena, Kent County, Maryland, and his mother died at Centerville, Queen Anne County, same State, in August, 1851, at the age of about forty-five or forty-six years.

    Mr. Briscoe, the subject of this notice, was reared to hard work on the farm; notwithstanding he managed to obtain a good education, study law, and became a member of the bar, November 4, 1852, at Centerville, In 1853 he emigrated to the distant West, settling at Lyons, Clinton County, Iowa, where, and at Clinton, same county, also, he practiced law for ten years. He was mayor of the latter town in 1862. His wife's health failing, he went with her in 1863 to Missouri, in hopes of recovering her health; but she died there August 24, 1863. Mr. Briscoe thereupon returned East, and during 1865-'66 was in the employ of the celebrated S. S. Cox, the New York statesman, in a claim agency office. In 1866 he came to Indiana, settling in Fort Wayne, where he practiced law four years. Next he was engaged by J. C. Bowser to lay the ties from Bluffton to Hartford City, on the present Fort Wayne, Cincinnati & Louisville Railroad. Since 1871 he has been a resident of Hartford City, where he practiced law until he assumed the editorial chair of the Telegram. He was a member of the State Senate in 1878-'82.

    Mr. Briscoe was first married April 14, 1854, to Margaret Anna Maclay, of Mifflin county, Pennsylvania. She was a daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Maclay. Her grandfather, William Maclay, was a United States Senator. (It is an interesting coincidence that the Christina names both of her parents and her husband's parents were the same.) The children by Mr. Briscoe's first marriage were E. F. J. B., born in 1855, and Fannie Mary, both of whom are teaching school in Wilmington, Delaware, and Samuel Maclay Briscoe. Mr. Briscoe was married a second time, August 24, 1871, to Miss Rachel A. Henley, of Blackford County, Indiana, daughter of John M. Henley, of Wheeling, Delaware County, this State.

    In 1854 Mr. Briscoe was made an Odd Fellow. In religion, he was brought up an Episcopalian, but abreast with the times, he has long since out-grown the hard shell thus cast about him.

Source: Biographical and Historical Record of Jay and Blackford Counties, Indiana by The Lewis Publishing Company, 1887.