Adopted By Cherokee
Thomas was born to Richard Thomas and his wife Temperance (Calvert) Thomas in a log house on Raccoon Creek, two miles (3 km) east of Mount Prospect, later called Waynesville, North Carolina. (He was related to the Calvert family, the founders of the colony of Maryland, through his mother, the grandniece of Lord Baltimore, and to President Zachary Taylor on his father’s side.) Thomas’ father drowned shortly before his son's birth.
As a youth, Thomas worked for the US Congressman Felix Walker as a clerk at a trading post in Qualla Town, a center of the Cherokee. Thomas signed a three-year contract in return for $100, board, and clothing. He quickly became friends with the Cherokee and learned their language. He was adopted into the tribe by Chief Yonaguska, who gave him the Cherokee name Will-usdi (Little Will).
In about 1820 Felix Walker was forced to close his stores; since he was unable to pay Thomas what he owed him, he gave the youth a set of law books. At the time there were no bar exams, and anyone who read law (generally with an established firm) was allowed to practice. Thomas became well-versed in frontier law. In 1831 Yonaguska asked him to become the Cherokees’ legal representative.
Thomas opened his own trading post for the Qualla Town Cherokee, and later opened several other trading posts in Western North Carolina.
Read more about this topic: William Holland Thomas
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