1892 Biography - Thomas S. Adams

Hon. Thomas Scott Adams, state commissioner of agriculture and ex-president of the Farmers' State Union of Louisiana, was born in Richland District, S. C.; in the year 1840, and is now fifty-one years old. His father purchased a plantation near Clinton, East Feliciana parish, in 1853, and moved on it with his family, consisting of a wife and four sons, in the winter of that year. Mr. Adams has therefore been a citizen of Louisiana some thirty-nine years. In 1859 he was sent to Furman university, S. C., where he stood premature examinations, graduating from that school in the early part of 1861. Sheriff Lake of Caddo was both his college and classmate, and the two were always the warmest friends. Mr. Lake introduced him to Miss Holloway, whom he subsequently married. She was a grandniece of Colonel Travis of Texas fame, while her great-grand-father fell in the Revolutionary war, fighting with the patriots around old Cambridge, known in some histories as Ninety-six. From this marriage were five living children, the eldest of whom, a son, married the granddaughter of Judge MeGehee of Mississippi. Mr. Adams is of old English stock, his paternal ancestor having served as admiral in the British navy prior to the Revolution, and at the inception of the late war his cousin was lieutenant-governor of South Carolina. When scarcely of age the subject of this sketch entered a South Carolina regiment known as the Hampton Legion, organized by Colonel, now Senator Hampton. Serving through the entire war in the eastern army, he was in many hard-fought battles and rose from private to captain. After the surrender at Appomattox he returned, like many confederate soldiers, with shattered health and the remnant of his fortune scattered. Nothing was left him but the brave woman he married and two bright baby boys, born during the war, but he summoned resolution to his heart, went manfully to work, and in a few years acquired competency and comfort. He is now the owner of the old plantation home in East Feliciana and is engaged in cotton and general farming and stockraising. At the general election in 1884 Capt. Adams yielded to the solicitation of friends and permitted his name to go before the people of East Feliciana for the lower house of the general assembly. He was elected by a large majority over four competitors, running ahead of his ticket. During the sessions of 1884-6 Capt. Adams introduced in the legislature many measures of reform, chief of which was "an industrial school for white girls of the state," "making dealing in futures a felony," and a joint resolution "remodeling the judiciary system of the state." But the crowning act of his public career was securing the United States barracks at Baton Rouge to the state, whereby turning over to Louisiana nearly if not quite a quarter of a million dollars. This important measure he not only conceived, but planned and successfully executed by passing a memorial through both branches of the Louisiana legislature and securing the co-operation of members of congress. At the close of his public life, Capt. Adams returned home disgusted with the corruption in politics, and though time and again importuned by his constituency, has persistently declined allowing his name to go before the public. Capt. Adams was elected vice president of the State Union at Opelousas in August, 1888 and was elected its president at the annual meeting held in Alexandria, re-elected in 1889, and again in 1890. He has been elected twice president of his subordinate union, and is also now filling out his fifth term as president of the Parish Union, and is now commissioner of agriculture of this state. A man of sincere, honest convictions, courteous, modest and educated, and above all zealously devoted to the great progressive movement of the Farmers' Alliance, it is confidently believed by his many friends that his administration of the State Union will be a brilliant success. He is greatly beloved by all the members of the order. He possesses their confidence to an eminent degree, and they will press his claims for the governorship with a warmth and a zeal that will be irresistible.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Louisiana, published in 1892, volume 2, pages 246-247.