Thomas Harden Lake was born February 22, 1834, in Greensboro, Alabama. He was the son of Joseph Lake and Margaret Gaines Scales Lake.[1]
In August 1849, during his summer break from the University of Alabama,[2] Thomas and his father went to visit his father’s brother, James Constantine Lake, at his home in Cave Spring, Georgia. One morning after breakfast, Joseph became ill and died. Joseph was buried near his brother’s house in Round Hill Cemetery[3]. Thomas, at just 15, was left to return home and assume the role of male head of the family as he had no living older brothers at the time. He left college and went to work in a store near Livingston.
In the Lake family history, Thomas is described as 5 feet 7 inches tall with blue eyes and wavy brown hair. He was a man of “pleasing personality, quiet and dignified, but full of fire when aroused.”[4]
On March 29, 1854, Thomas married Sarah Lane "Sally" Houston, daughter of M.C. and M. L. Houston. Sarah was 17 at the time. Thomas was 18.[5]
In April 1855, Thomas and Sally welcomed a son, Joseph J. Lake. Joseph passed away on October 27 of that same year.[6]
By the age of 21, Thomas had become a partner in the wholesale mercantile establishment where he worked.[7] He was a successful businessman and managed to accumulate more than a quarter of a million dollars, which was a considerable fortune at the time.[8]
In 1861, the Civil War began. Thomas served as a captain and quartermaster in the 40th Regiment, Alabama Infantry.[9] According to the Lake family history, Thomas achieved the rank of colonel by the end of the war. However, he was referred to as Capt. T. H. Lake in his obituary. Thomas was reportedly well-liked and respected by his men and was able to recognize and name every man in his command.[10]
During the war, Thomas’ uncle, James Constantine Lake, died leaving behind his second wife and five children. By November 1866, Thomas’ five young, orphaned cousins were living with him in Mobile.[11] Thomas petitioned the court to be appointed guardian of all five children and his late uncle’s estate. The two oldest children, James Constantine Lake, Jr., and Joseph Harden Lake, filed a letter with the court in support of the request. Judge George Bond granted the request.[12]
Thomas bought his uncle’s Cave Spring property–—then known as the Lake House–—at public auction for $2,000 on December 4, 1866.[13] James C. Lake’s will had included a provision allowing his wife, Caroline Chapman Lake, use of the estate until she died or remarried. Census records show that Caroline had married Joseph Ford, the man in charge of the sale of her late husband’s estate, by 1870.[14] However, it is not known when she vacated the property. It is also not known if Thomas ever occupied the house or if any of James Lake’s children returned to live there during their stepmother’s time occupying the property.
The years immediately after the war were challenging for Thomas. In addition to becoming the guardian for five children, the wholesale firm in which he was a partner–Parker, Lake and Company–failed in the late 1860s.[15]
In 1870, Thomas’ wife Sally became ill. She reportedly sent for her childhood friend, Sarah Elizabeth Hopkins, and for Thomas, took both their hands in hers and expressed the wish that after her death, the two should marry.[16]
Sally died on December 11, 1870 at 34 years of age. She is buried in Myrtlewood Cemetery in Livingston, Alabama. Her tombstone is engraved with the following: “Thy gentle spirit has winged its way from earth to heaven. From blessing to be blest.”[17] According to the Lake family history, Thomas’ wards had been devoted to her.[18]
Less than two years later, Thomas married Sarah, just as Sally had wished.[19]
In 1873, Thomas resigned his guardianship of the three youngest of his uncle’s children. The oldest two had come of age. James Constantine, the oldest, would later name his firstborn daughter after Sally, Thomas’ first wife. W.M. Friend became the guardian of the three youngest children and, at some point, owner of the Lake property in Cave Spring. It is not known who Friend was or what, if any, connection he had to the family. Friend owned the house until 1875 when Mary Lake, the youngest of James Lake’s children, turned 18.[20]
As for Thomas, in 1874, he and Sarah welcomed their first child, Lillian. They would add four more children to their family: Devereux in 1876, Elizabeth in 1877, Margaret in 1879, and Julia in 1883.[21]
That same year, Thomas purchased a farm four miles outside Mobile. He continued farming until 1892, at which time he sold the farm and established a lumber business in Mobile which he continued until 1907.[22]
Thomas’ son Devereux, the author of the Lake family history, noted that even though his father lost everything in the war and its aftermath, he urged others to “accept the inevitable after the war, to get down to work, and to treat the negroes as free men.”[23] Devereux added that his father stood for justice and obedience to the law. Though Thomas had owned slaves, he was—according to his son—glad to see them freed. Years before the Civil War started, Thomas had freed “Old Dan Jones,” who Devereux described as a “hostler and general factotum about our home until he died at the age of about ninety years.”[24] Thomas gave Dan a horse and a mule when he freed him. Later, the government gave Jones 40 acres. In Jones’ will, dated September 30, 1900, he specified that all his worldly goods should go to his “former master Thomas Harden Lake” who he had known for more than 40 years “and who was always kind to me in slavery as well as during my freedom and I feel nearer to him than to anybody else in this world.” Jones further specified that if Thomas died before him, then his estate should go to Thomas’ children.[25]
In remembering his father, Devereux said Thomas “never toadied to wealth, never did anything for policy’s sake, never surrendered any principles to expediency.”[26] In the last years of his life, Thomas was feeble and in pain. As he neared the end of his life, he said, “I am tired; I am ready, and not afraid.” According to Devereux, “He made the world better for having lived in it. The heritage he left, of optimism, honesty, simplicity, hospitality, democracy—will carry on to posterity through generations.”[27]
Thomas died on June 7, 1915 at the age of 81 in Birmingham, Alabama, at the home of his daughter, Lillian Lake Fearn. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.[28]
[1] Lake, Devereux, 1876-. A Personal Narrative of Some Branches of the Lake Family in America with Particular Reference to the Antecedents and Descendants of Richard Lake, Georgia Pioneer. [Lorain, O.] :Priv. pub. [The Lorain printing company], 1937. Page 180.
[2] Ancestry.com. U.S., College Student Lists, 1763-1924 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012. Original data: College Student Lists. Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society.
[3] Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17723833/joseph-lake: accessed May 15, 2025), memorial page for Joseph Lake (22 Feb 1794–26 Aug 1849), Find a Grave Memorial ID 17723833, citing Round Hill Cemetery, Cave Spring, Floyd County, Georgia, USA; Maintained by E Jones (contributor 47192120)..
[4] Lake, page 187.
[5] Ancestry.com. Alabama, U.S., Marriage Indexes, 1814-1935 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: WPA Indices to Marriage Records, by County, 1814-1935. Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama.
[6] Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/32986510/joseph_j-lake: accessed May 15, 2025), memorial page for Joseph J Lake (Apr 1855–27 Oct 1855), Find a Grave Memorial ID 32986510, citing Myrtlewood Cemetery, Livingston, Sumter County, Alabama, USA; Maintained by Scott Jones (contributor 47912382).
[7] Lake, page 242.
[8] Lake, page 243.
[9] National Park Service. U.S., Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. Original data: National Park Service, Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, online <http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/>, acquired 2007.
[10] Lake, page 187.
[11] The Lake family history (page 212) indicates only the three boys of James Constantine Lake went to live with T.H. Lake, however, court documents show that T.H. Lake said all five children lived with him and all five were listed by name in the court order granting him guardianship of the children and their late father’s estate.
[12] Georgia. Court of Ordinary (Floyd County). Wills, Vol. B, 1862–1870. Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742–1992. Ancestry.com. Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8635/images/005764789_00245. Accessed 10 May 2025.
[13] The Rome Weekly Courier, November 23, 1866, Image 4
[14] "United States, Census, 1870", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MC39-CVM : Sat Jan 18 23:29:29 UTC 2025), Entry for Joseph Ford and Caroline H Ford, 1870.
[15] Lake, page 184.
[16] Lake, page 184
[17] Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/32986509/sarah_lane-lake: accessed May 15, 2025), memorial page for Sarah Lane Houston Lake (10 Jun 1836–11 Dec 1870), Find a Grave Memorial ID 32986509, citing Myrtlewood Cemetery, Livingston, Sumter County, Alabama, USA; Maintained by Scott Jones (contributor 47912382).
[18] Lake, page 212.
[19] Lake, page 180.
[20] “Mary Lake,” FamilySearch Family Tree, entry for Mary Lake, ID K8WM-Z75, accessed May 20, 2025, https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/details/K8WM-Z75.
[21] Lake, page 191.
[22] Lake, page 184.
[23] Lake, page 243.
[24] Lake, page 243.
[25] Probate Court Records and Index, 1813-1964; Author: Alabama. Probate Court (Mobile County). Court Records Will Book, Vol 8-9, 1897-1909.
[26] Lake, page 184.
[27] Lake, page 246.
[28] Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/78309401/thomas_harden-lake: accessed May 15, 2025), memorial page for Thomas Harden Lake (22 Feb 1834–7 Jun 1915), Find a Grave Memorial ID 78309401, citing Magnolia Cemetery, Mobile, Mobile County, Alabama, USA; Maintained by Eireannach (contributor 48879922).