Pg 775

Thomas Croslin, farmer, was born in West Tennessee in 1822, the son of Thomas and Nancy (Teal) Croslin. The father, a farmer, born in Virginia in 1778, went to what is now Coffee County, Tenn., in his youth, a pioneer of that region, married and afterward moved to West Tennessee.

In 1824 he moved to Morgan County, Ill. A year later he returned to Coffee County, and for several years after 1828 lived in the Cherokee Nation, Ala. In 1844 he came to Williamson County, IlL, and bought a farm on which he died in 1865. His wife, a native of South Carolina, died the year before. Three of their four children are living. Our subject remained with his parents until 1844 he came to "Suckerdom."

In 1846 he married Elvira, daughter of John T. and Jane Carter, and a native of Smith County, Tenn. Their children are John, Alonzo, Smith, Louella and Alice. He lived in Williamson County until 1858, when he bought property in Parrish, and cleared the site of the village.

In December, 1861, he enlisted in Company I, Fifty-sixth Illinois Infantry, for three years or for the war, and fought at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Mission Ridge, Chickamauga, Kenesaw Mountain, Nashville and numerous skirmishes, not wounded or captured, but permanently injured by sickness. He was discharged July 14, 1865, at Springfield, Ill.

He lived at Parrish until 1881, when he bought his present farm of seventy acres. He is a Republican, first voting for Polk. He is a member of the F. M. B. A., and he and his wife are members of the Baptist Church.