Kentucky: A History of the State, Perrin, Battle, Kniffin, 8th ed., 1888,
Jefferson Co.

THOMAS LEWIS JEFFERSON was born in Baltimore, Md., February 15, 1826.  He
was the eldest son of Thomas Jefferson, and came of good, strong stock.
His father was a blacksmith, and his grandfather was a sailor.  His mother
was a woman of fine business qualities, and to her, quite as much as to
his father, did Mr. Jefferson owe his business sagacity.  While her husband
was busy in the shop the mother started a little grocery store.  This was
after the family came to Louisville, in 1831.  The little store that his
mother started prospered wonderfully.  Soon the father had to be taken
from his shop.  Then Thomas, a lad of sixteen, had to be removed from
school to lend his help to attend to the thriving trade.  The boy had no
time to get a fine education; but what he missed in 'ologies and 'onomies
he gained in a practical insight into business affairs.  The schooling
that he did get, however, was thorough, for he was under such teachers as
Noble Butler and John H. Harney.  It was in 1842 that he began his long
and eventful business life as a clerk in his mother's store.  When he was
twenty-six years old he formed a partnership with Mr. Charles Gallagher
in the wholesale grocery business.  After a few months the firm dissolved
by mutual consent, and Mr. Jefferson branched out for himself on Market
street, below First, in a wholesale and retail grocery.  He was successful
from the start, and soon built himself a fine store on the southeast corner
of Market and First streets, where he remained twelve years, and
established a fine trade.  He was the sole agent for the Kanawha salt
manufactories during this period.  By this time the wholesale feature of
the business had grown so enormously that he was forced to open a wholesale
house on Main street, with himself, his two brothers, and A. N. Jennison,
under the firm name of T. L. Jefferson & Bros.  He went along, never
dabbling in speculations, never mixing his name up with rings or cliques,
and by shrewdness and ability made his business a great success.  In 1875
he was appointed executor of John Bull's estate.  The interests of this
estate were so great that Mr. Jefferson had to devote to its management
all his time and energy.  He therefore resigned from his Main street house,
making room for his eldest son, T. L. Jefferson, Jr., and John W. Day,
who had been for years a faithful and trusted clerk.  In 1879 he resigned
his position as executor, owing to the litigation that grew out of Dr.
Bull's will, after which he devoted himself to managing his own estate, and
was not afterward actively engaged in business.  It is not strange that a
man of Mr. Jefferson's active mind should turn to politics.  He was not in
any sense a politician, but did much to see that the city in which all
his interests were should be well governed.  In 1851 he was elected to
fill a vacancy in the Board of Council.  He was re-elected for three
consecutive terms; and in 1860 he was elected to the Board of Aldermen. In
1867 he was elected to the lower house of the State legislature, and was
re-elected at the expiration of his term.  When his second term was over
he was elected to the State senate for one term.  He refused to go a second
time.  He was a member of the Democratic City Executive Committee, and
also a member of the State Central Committee for several years.  He was a
delegate to the Democratic National Convention which met in New York in
1868.  While a member of the council he was trustee of the Louisville
Marine Hospital, the Alma House, the Work House, and the Pest House.  He
served from 1870 till [sic] his death on the directory of the House of
Refuge.  For a number of years he was trustee of the Louisville Female
Seminary.  In 1874 he was appointed by Gov. Leslie a trustee of the
Kentucky Institute for the Blind.  He was re-appointed by Govs. McCreary
and Blackburn.  Mr. Jefferson was also a trustee of the American Printing
House for the Blind, and did valuable service in organizing the method
of keeping the accounts at this institution.  Mr. Jefferson was one of the
incorporators of the Masonic Widows' and Orphans' Home.  He was elected
director at its organization in 1867, and was president of the board from
1869 until his death.  In 1861 Mr. Jefferson took all the degrees of
Symbolic Masonry, and afterward of Capitular and Chivalric.  He was at
the time of his death Past Master, having been elected Master in 1882 of
Excelsior Lodge No. 258, Free and Accepted Masons; he was also Master of
King Solomon Royal Arch Chapter No. 18, and member of DeMolay Commandery,
No. 12, Knights Templar, of which he was also treasurer from 1873 until
death.  He was known to all the Masons of Kentucky for his untiring and
unselfish zeal for the Home.  The Board of Directors of the Home adopted
the following resolutions on his death: "Resolved, That in the death of our
brother the members of this board have lost an active co-laborer, ever
earnest, sincere and candid, a presiding officer, attentive, courteous and
impartial in the discharge of his duty, and the Home a wise, thoughtful,
vigilant and faithful guardian of its interest.  In everything that he
undertook our brother was earnest and devoted, and if there was any object
of a public nature he had in life which was nearer and dearer to his heart
than all else, it was the welfare and success of our Home. At all times,
and on all proper occasions he was its advocate its interest.  We feel that
to him more than to any single individual is due its present and permanent
usefulness.  He labored for and watched over its material and domestic
interests, very often to the exclusion of his private business matters, and
gave to it such exertions and patient, thoughtful care as only could have
been given by one who loved the Home with his whole heart.  Resolved, that
the inmates of the Home, with the members of the board, attend the funeral
of our brother in a body; that these resolutions be spread upon the minutes
and published in the daily papers, and an engrossed copy be sent to his
sorrowing family with the heartfelt and sincere expression of our sympathy
in their great bereavement."  He was also an active member of the Sons of
Temperance, and was for a time the presiding officer of his division, and
D.G.W.P. of the district.  Mr. Jefferson joined the M.E. Church, South, in
1848.  He was a member of the Board of Managers of that body in 1854, and
remained such until the principal offices were removed to Nashville.  He
was secretary of the Louisville City Missionary Society of the church for
years; for fifteen years he was superintendent of the Bethel Sunday-school,
which he organized, and he also assisted in organizing the Senon Chapel,
M.E. Church, South.  He was a member of its official board, and recording
steward and superintendent of the Sunday-school connected with it, which he
also organized.  Mr. Jefferson was one of the most active business men of
Louisville.  He had been a member, director and vice-president of the Board
of Trade.  He had served since 1859 as a director of the Bank of
Louisville.  From 1872 to 1874 he was a director of the Louisville &
Frankfort and Lexington & Frankfort railroad companies. In 1878 he was
elected director of the Kentucky and Louisville Mutual Insurance Company,
and in July, 1880, was made its president, and held that position until his
death.  Besides all this, he was ever active in the cause of charity.  He
was identified with the Southwestern Relief Commission in 1866, which
helped the Southern destitute.  He was chairman of a committee to receive
and disburse funds raised by the Masons of Kentucky for the relief of the
Chicago fire suffers in 1871.  Mr. Jefferson was married to Elizabeth Ann
Creagh, May 28, 1848, by Rev. James Craik.  They had nine children, four
daughters and five sons, three of whom are dead.  Most of their daughters
are married to prosperous merchants, and have families of their own about
them.  This is an out-line of a long, busy and active life.  At his desk
he was prompt, careful, hones.  At his fireside was cheerful, social,
hospitable.  He lived to see a large family grow up about him, all of whom
have prospered.  He felt the full force of the consolation which the Good
Book speaks of, for his children "rise up and call him blessed."  Mr.
Jefferson died March 23, 1884.  His fatal illness began in November
preceding, and at that time was not considered serious, but it gradually
grew worse, until his malady was pronounced cancer of the stomach;
nevertheless his stomach resisted the advances of the disease much longer
than his most sanguine relatives and friends expected.  Thomas Lewis
Jefferson represented a class of men who in their day won for England
wealth and respect--the hones and industrious merchants.  He was not a
brilliant man, neither a poet nor an orator, but a plain, steady,
common-sense man, who took a deep interest in his adopted city and all that
affected it, and who led an active business life.  The people of Louisville
were so long accustomed to hear his name mentioned first in every
enterprise that would benefit the city that his death came to all like a
personal bereavement.  A man of clear head, of clean morals, of pure habits
and strong friendships; a man of solid worth, of rare business sagacity,
and of immense energy and resource, he was as much a loss to the city as
he was to his own family.  He left a large fortune, and he also left, what
is infinitely better, a name that has never been dishonored and a memory
that no man will attack.  He was so well known, he has gone in and out
among this people for so many years, that it looks almost like an
unnecessary work to tell how often and on what occasions his name has
figured in public enterprises.  He was a model business man, honest,
reliable, clear of head and pure of heart; of a temperament at once
aggressive and conciliatory, of rare sagacity and wonderful foresight, and
above all of extraordinary executive ability.

Jefferson Butler Harney Gallagher Jennison Day Creagh Craik Bull
=
MD

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