s/o James Samuel and M Clark Fruit....w/o Elizabeth Thompson

Thomas Clark Fruit was one of the early and well-known pioneers of his section of the State. He was a native of North Carolina born October 5, 1784, and passed the first eighteen years of his life in the place of his birth.


He then went to Kentucky and was married in that State July 31, 1806, to Elizabeth Thompson who was a native of North Carolina. She was sixteen years old when she went to Kentucky. She was the youngest child of her family and had the misfortune to lose her mother (Polly (Reader) Thompson), who was drowned when she was a small child. Mr. and Mrs. Fruit took up their residence on a tract of six hundred acres of wild land, and he at once entered upon its improvement, erecting necessary buildings including a log house for the shelter of his family, and otherwise doing much pioneer labor, which in time resulted in the development of a good farm.

Mr. Fruit lived in his Kentucky home many years, but finally decided to try life in the wilds of Illinois and in 1834 left Kentucky with a team and came directly to DeWitt County. He located on a tract of wild prairie on section 14, Tunbridge Township on which he built a log house 20x20 feet in dimensions, with a kitchen 10x20 feet. He fenced his land and otherwise greatly improved it and made his dwelling place here till death removed him in 1871 from the scenes where he had so long been a well-known figure.

There has been much speculation about the origins of the Fruit family. Some believe that the family migrated from Wales, others believe that the Fruit family came here from France. Thomas Clark and Elizabeth had thirteen children including our ancestor, Mary Reader Fruit. Mary Reader Fruit and George Wynn Cox were married on October 25, 1834. George was born in the year 1816 in Wayne Kentucky.
(from Tawny... [email protected])