OBIT - The Keowee Courier, 22 July 1880:
Life of Rev. Thomas Dawson - Died at Pendleton, SC on Tuesday, June 29th 1880 @ 9am, Rev. Thomas Dawson, 90 yrs, 3 mos & 25 days. Thomas Dawson, son of Joseph & Eliza Dawson, was born on the 4th of March 1790 in Lyme, Regis, Dorset County, England. At the age of 8 he was sent to school in Wellington, where he stayed 3 yrs, then to Mr. Paul in Castle Cary. After leaving this school he was apprenticed to his grandfather and uncle, who were linen drapers in Maidenstone, Kent. His grandfather and father were "Freedmen", a distiction in England entitleing them to vote in elections; and his object in being an apprentice was to attain that privilege for himself; but his grandfather dying before the expiration of the apprenticeship he did not aquire the right. He then, at the age of eighteen went to London to serve as a clerk in a large dry good store for 3 yrs, then into buisness on his own account as a dry good merchant, but it was unsuccessfull. So, failing this he entered into the British Army, 4th Regiment of Foot and was a Lieutenant at the time of the Battle of Waterloo, but was not engaged in that battle, having been detailed as a recruiting officer in England. After this battle the British Army was reduced and Lt. Dawson was placed on the retired list at half pay, which pay he continued to receive for a considerable time after he came to America. On leaving the Army he returned to London in order to learn the Lancasterian system of teaching, after acquiring which he went to Boston, England and taught school. Whilst there he made an application to William Lodge, A.F.M. to be a Mason, but having decided to come to America and the vessel on which he had engaged his passage being ready to sail, his application was never acted upon. He sailed from Liverpool early in the year 1818 and arrived in New York, whence he went to Philadelphia and thence to Georgetown in the District of Columbia, at which place there was being held a tri-ennial convention of Baptists, and he was with the Rev. Humphrey Posey, appointed by that convention to teach the Indians in Western North Carolina, which appointment was with the sanction of James Monroe, then President of the United States. Mr. Dawson arrived on the Hiwassee River in February 1819 and was engaged in teaching the Cherokee & Creek Indians for 3 or 4 years. He was married to Miss Mary Lewis of New Jersey, who was also a teacher and whom he had previously met in Philadelelphia. In 1823 he left Hiwassee and move to the Pendleton Dist in South Carolina, near Perkins Creek Baptist Church. He was ordained a minister in 1824 and preached not only at Perkin's Baptist Church, but throughout the Pendleton District. He afterwards bought a plantation on Martin's Creek, now known as Harper's tanyard place. Whilest residing here he attached himself to Shiloh Church, then Pendleton Baptist Church where he remained until he died. From Martin's Creek, he remove to Barnswell District and preached most of the time as a missionary in Barnswell, Colleton, Sumter and the upper portion of the Charleston District. Whilest residing in Barnswell he made an application to Egeria Lodge # 71, A.F.M., at Ridgeville, and the degrees of sumbolic masonry were conferred on him by that lodge. He was made a Royal Arch Mason by Union Chapter # 2 in Charleston and had the Council degrees conferred on him by A.G. Mackey in Orangeburg. Mr Dawson was subsequently employed by the Charleston Association to prech to Negroes on Edisto Island, where he remained until the Confederate War broke out, when he cas compelled to remove to George's Station on the South Carolina Railroad where he remained one year and thence went to Orangeburg. At the close of the war he removed to the Pendleton village and affiliated with Pendleton Lodge # 34 A.F.M., April 13, 1867. His funeral services were conducted by the Rev. Hutto, of the M.E. Church, at the Pendleton Baptist Church, on the 30th of June 1880. After the services in the church he was buried by the Pendleton Lodge # 34, A.F.M., and assisting brethren, the the usual Masonic honors. W.H. Gaillard
