Alexander Thom

ALEXANDER THOM WAS BORN ON NOVEMBER 27, 1835, in Hamilton, Ontario, the only child of John and Margaret Thom, both natives of Scotland. Margaret died when Alex was an infant, and John died when Alex was just thirteen years old. He was thereafter raised by his aunt and uncle, Alison (Thom) and Hugh Cant, and their children in Galt, Ontario, where Alex learned the trade of millwright.

In October 1858, Alex and three friends departed Galt and eventually traveled by ship to Panama, crossed the isthmus by railroad, and then continued by ship to San Francisco in search of gold.

By 1865, Alex had established a foundry business in Downieville, California.  He became a United States citizen in 1866 and, in 1869, a 33rd-degree Mason.  In 1871, he married Emily Louisa Pidwell, and together they raised three sons: Cyril, Philip, and Lewis.

By the 1880s, Alex and Emily had moved to San Francisco, where Alex was employed as a foundry foreman at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard.  Around 1900, the family relocated to Treadwell, Alaska, where Alex became foreman of the foundry at the Treadwell Mine.  After several years, they returned to San Francisco, surviving the devastating earthquake and fire of 1906.

Shortly thereafter, Alex was invited by his son Philip—who was mining near Tonopah—to visit and consider establishing a much-needed foundry business in the booming camp.  Alex arrived in Tonopah and remained for several months, but in late November he contracted pneumonia.  He died early on the morning of December 3, 1906, at the Miners’ Union Hospital, at the age of seventy-one.

Philip made several futile attempts to return his father’s body to San Francisco for burial. Alexander Thom was ultimately laid to rest in the Tonopah Cemetery on December 10, 1906, under the auspices of Tonopah Masonic Lodge No. 28.

There was no notoriety attached to Alexander Thom’s name, nor was there ever any scandal to distinguish him from the countless others who passed through Tonopah in its earliest years.  He was a beloved husband and father, and a skilled tradesman who followed work where mining camps rose and opportunity called.  Men like Thom—steady, capable, and largely unremarked—formed the backbone of the community.  Though history seldom records their names in bold type, it was their labor that helped build Tonopah into the “Queen of the Silver Camps.”