Thomas Joel Ponton

Thomas Joel Ponton

• Father: Alexander Campbell Ponton b. 19 July 1843, d. circa 1879
• Mother: Winifred Pauline Koonce b. circa 8 June 1850, d. circa 21 July 1936

• Thomas Joel Ponton was born on 17 February 1874 in Lavaca County, Texas.
• Winifred Pauline Koonce appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1880 in Lavaca County, Texas. Other members of the household included Thomas Joel Ponton, Bathsheba Treatise Best, Alexander Hugo Ponton and Minnie Lee Ponton.
• Winifred Pauline Koonce appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1900 in Lavaca County, Texas. Other members of the household included Thomas Joel Ponton, Alexander Hugo Ponton, Harwood D. Ponton, Louella May Ponton, Boyce Ponton, Elsie Isabelle Ponton and John Ponton. John is identified as a lodger, working on the farm.
• He was a teacher, according to the 1900 census.
• The following appeared in the 1903 edition of the Year Book for Texas:
        THOMAS JOEL PONTON, HALLETTSVILLE, TEXAS,
  Representative from the Fifty-second district (Lavaca and Wharton counties) in the Twenty-eighth Legislature of Texas, is a school teacher by occupation and was bom in Lavaca county, February 17, 1876, [sic] the son of A. C. and Mrs. Winifred (Hoonce) [sic] Ponton. His father was born in that county in 1842, served gallantly through the war between the States, and was killed by a horse when the subject of this notice was a child. His mother is still living in Lavaca county. She was bom in Mississippi, and in 1860 moved to Texas with her father, who was an extensive planter and slave owner.
       Thomas Joel Ponton, after attending the common schools, completed his literary education at a college in Houston, Texas. He has taught school six years, is a close and constant student and keeps abreast of his profession. He has always taken an active interest in politics and worked in the interest of Democracy. He has also labored ardently for good roads, the development of the rice industry, the betterment of conditions for the laboring class, and purity of the ballot. He was a member of important committees and made an excellent record in the Twenty-eighth Legislature. In that body he introduced and pushed to enactment a bill providing for the publication of notices of the sale of lands under execution and (with Mr. Pearson), a bill for the protection of the birds of Texas. He also took an active part in securing the passage of the general good roads bill and a bill offering a reward of $50,000 to any person who discovers an effective means to exterminate the boll weevil.
• He married Lula Mary Norrell, daughter of Levi Stuart Norrell and Cornelia E. Easterling, on 17 December 1904 in Lavaca County, Texas.
• Thomas Joel Ponton and Lula Mary Norrell appeared in the US federal census of 15 April 1910 in Shiner, Lavaca County, Texas.
• He was employed as a school teacher, according to the 1910 census.
• Thomas Joel Ponton and Lula Mary Norrell appeared in the US federal census of 1 January 1920 in Shiner, Lavaca County, Texas, at Sixth Street.
• He was employed as acting postmaster, according to the 1920 census.
• He officially witnessed the death of Lula Mary Norrell on 20 May 1929 at Santa Rosa Infirmary in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas.
• Thomas Joel Ponton became a widower at the 20 May 1929 death of his wife Lula Mary Norrell.
• At the time of his death Thomas Joel Ponton was living in Guadalupe County, Texas.
• Thomas Joel Ponton died on 30 September 1948 at age 74 in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, at San Antonio State Hospital.
• He was interred at Shiner Cemetery, Shiner, Lavaca County, Texas.

• Last Edited: 6 Mar 2014