Representative Philemon Thomas

Philemon Thomas (February 9, 1763 – November 18, 1847) was an American politician and soldier who served as a U.S. representative from Louisiana’s 2nd congressional district from 1831 to 1835. A veteran of multiple American wars and frontier conflicts, he achieved the rank of major general and played a prominent role in the political development of both Kentucky and the Florida Parishes of Louisiana. Over the course of his long public career, he served in the Kentucky state legislature, was a member of the Kentucky Constitutional Convention, commanded militia forces in the West Florida Revolt, and later became a leading Democratic-Republican and Jacksonian figure in Louisiana politics.

Thomas was born in Orange County in the Virginia Colony on February 9, 1763, the son of Richard Thomas II and Frances Hawkins. He was educated in common schools and came of age during the American Revolutionary War. At the age of sixteen he enlisted as a private in the 6th North Carolina Regiment, entering Continental service in the closing years of the conflict. Serving under General Nathanael Greene, he was promoted to the rank of ensign and saw action at the Battle of Guilford Court House on March 15, 1781, one of the pivotal engagements of the Southern campaign.

After the Revolutionary War, Thomas moved westward and settled around 1783 in the Kentucky District of Virginia, part of the trans-Appalachian frontier then being opened to American settlement. When hostilities broke out in the Northwest Indian War, he again volunteered for military service. He fought in the Battle of the Wabash (also known as St. Clair’s Defeat) in 1791, where he reportedly suggested opening a passage through the enemy’s lines, a maneuver credited with saving part of the force under General Arthur St. Clair. As Kentucky’s population grew and it moved toward statehood, Thomas became active in territorial and then state politics. After Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792, he served in the Kentucky state House of Representatives and state Senate and took part in the Kentucky Constitutional Convention of 1799. He also sought federal office several times while residing in Kentucky, running unsuccessfully for Congress four times: in the 2nd (“Northern”) congressional district in 1799 and 1801, and in the 6th congressional district in 1803 and 1804.

In 1806 Thomas relocated to Spanish West Florida, settling in the Baton Rouge area. There he engaged in land speculation and established a grocery business, becoming part of the Anglo-American community that increasingly challenged Spanish authority in the region. On August 22, 1810, he attended a convention of local leaders in Baton Rouge where delegates debated the overthrow of Spanish rule. All but one of the delegates voted in favor of rebellion, and Thomas was appointed colonel commandant of the militia forces by the convention. In that capacity he organized and led a volunteer force against Fort San Carlos at Baton Rouge, then garrisoned by only twenty-eight men, including officers Lieutenants Luis de Grand Pré and J. B. Metzinger. Shortly after midnight on September 22, 1810, Thomas ordered his militia to approach the fort and demand its surrender; when the garrison opened fire, his men returned fire, stormed the position, and captured the fort, taking twenty-one prisoners, including Don Carlos de Hault de Lassus, the Spanish governor of Baton Rouge.

Following the capture of Baton Rouge, the convention declared the independence of West Florida from Spain and elevated Thomas’s rank from colonel to general. He was dispatched to suppress loyalist militias and consolidate the new regime’s authority in the surrounding countryside. Thomas secured the surrender of loyalist forces in Springfield and St. Helena Parish, extending the control of the short-lived Republic of West Florida. John Rhea, president of the convention, subsequently requested that President James Madison annex the republic to the United States. Later historical assessments have noted that support for the revolt was uneven; according to Southeastern Louisiana University history professor Sam Hyde, residents of the western Florida Parishes were largely supportive of the insurrection, while many in the eastern region opposed it, and Thomas’s army “violently suppressed opponents of the revolt, leaving a bitter legacy in the Tangipahoa and Tchefuncte River regions.” On November 10, 1810, Thomas was elected to the newly established West Florida senate and made commander of the army. He was authorized by the executive committee to assemble a force of more than 600 militia under Reuben Kemper for a projected campaign against Mobile and Pensacola, a plan that was ultimately aborted. President Madison instead instructed William C. C. Claiborne, governor of the Territory of Orleans, to take possession of the area as part of the Louisiana Purchase; the region was incorporated as the County of Feliciana. Claiborne, who met and worked with Thomas during this transition, referred to him as “the Ajax of the late revolution, who [has] always been esteemed an honest man.”

Thomas continued his military service in the Louisiana militia into the period of the War of 1812. He attained the rank of major general and served in that capacity until 1815, contributing to the defense and organization of the Gulf Coast frontier during the conflict. His prominence in military and local affairs in the Florida Parishes helped to establish his standing in Louisiana politics. In 1820 he was chosen as a presidential elector and, as a member of the Electoral College, cast his vote for President James Monroe, aligning himself with the dominant Democratic-Republican consensus of the era. He also twice sought the governorship of Louisiana, running unsuccessfully in 1824 and again in 1828, campaigns that nonetheless underscored his continued influence in state politics.

In 1831 Thomas entered national office when he was elected as the U.S. representative from Louisiana’s 2nd congressional district. Serving two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, from March 4, 1831, to March 3, 1835, he represented a district that included the Florida Parishes and parts of southeastern Louisiana during a period of growing sectional and partisan conflict. In Congress he was generally associated with the Jacksonian wing of the Democratic Party, reflecting his background as a frontier soldier and advocate of westward expansion. His legislative service coincided with major national debates over issues such as internal improvements, the Bank of the United States, and federal authority in the states, though he did not achieve the same level of national prominence in legislative affairs that he had attained as a military and revolutionary figure in West Florida.

After leaving Congress in 1835, Thomas remained a respected elder statesman in Baton Rouge and the surrounding region. Having spent decades in public life—as a Revolutionary War soldier, frontier officer in the Northwest Indian War, militia general in the War of 1812, leader of the West Florida Revolt, Kentucky legislator and constitutional delegate, presidential elector, and member of the U.S. House—he retired from active political and military service. Philemon Thomas died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on November 18, 1847. He was interred in Baton Rouge National Cemetery, where his grave marks the resting place of a figure whose career spanned from the Revolutionary era through the early decades of the American republic.