Quick, Thomas

Born: 1823-10-13 Saint Clair County, Illinois

Died: 1887-03-07 Saint Louis, Missouri

Thomas Quick was a farmer, teacher, attorney, state representative, public servant, and Mason. He attended pioneer schools as a boy, then McKendree College. After attending college for two and a half years, he taught school while studying law under George Trumbull in Belleville, Illinois. In October 1845, Quick married Eveline S. Thrift, with whom he eventually had six children. He was admitted to the bar in 1846, and moved to Waterloo, Illinois the next year and began a law practice. In the 1850, the voters of Monroe County elected him to the Illinois House of Representatives. At the time, he owned real estate valued at $250. Although initially a Democrat, he opposed slavery and, following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, he became a Free Soiler, then a Republican. In 1855, he moved back to Belleville, where he continued practicing law. In early 1857, Illinois Governor William H. Bissell appointed him one of three bank commissioners for the state. Governors Richard Yates and Richard J. Oglesby reappointed Quick, and he worked as bank commissioner until after the Civil War. From 1858 until well after the Civil War, he farmed land that he owned in Washington County, Illinois. By 1860, he owned $12,000 in real and personal property. He supported the Union during the war.

History of St. Clair County, Illinois (Philadelphia: Brink, McDonough, 1881), 219-20; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, St. Clair County, 1 October 1845, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Waterloo, Monroe County, IL, 92; Illinois Daily Journal (Springfield), 9 January 1851, 2:4; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 18 February 1857, 3:1; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Washington County, IL, 81; Missouri, U.S., Death Records, 1850-1931 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2008); Gravestone, Green Mount Protestant Cemetery, Belleville, IL.